Cheryl Leavy

Cheryl Leavy is a poet and children’s book author from the Kooma Nation. She was awarded the Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2026 and the Oodgeroo Noonuccal Prize for Indigenous Poetry in 2022 — the only poet to hold both awards. Published by Cordite, Griffith Review, Southerly and The Guardian, Cheryl’s first poetry collection, Mudhunda – The Song Country, is forthcoming in 2027. She writes in English and her critically endangered Kooma (Guwamu) language. Her debut bilingual picture book, Yanga Mother, was shortlisted in the Australian Book Industry Awards in the Children’s Picture Book of the Year category and the Queensland Literary Awards as a Work of State Significance. Cheryl is currently a writer-in-residence at Sydney Botanic Gardens, and formerly at Varuna, State Library of Queensland, and the Banff Centre in Canada.