Lisa Marie Bellear was born in Melbourne and celebrates her birthday on the second of May. Actively involved in Indigenous affairs throughout the country Lisa is passionate about social justice and simply looking after each other. She is an executive member of the Black Women's Action in Education Foundation (BWAEF). She has been a volunteer broadcaster on 3CR community radio for eleven years on the Not Another Koori Show. She is currently doing her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland and in defiance of geography is also on the Australia Council Tertiary Writer-in-Residence based at the Australian Catholic University in Ballarat.

Lisa loves taking photographs and watching AFL (not usually at the same time), and although she holds St Kilda dear to her heart, now that she calls Brisbane home, she's developing an affection for the Brisbane Bears. Lisa has performed her poetry in many venues and has had her poetry published in many journals and anthologies. This is her first published collection.

Lisa Bellear, poet, writer, visual artist, academic and social commentator, juxtaposes her activities to create a unique style of Australian art. Her first collection of poetry, Dreaming in Urban Areas was published by UQP in 1996.

A well-known face on campuses, festivals and readings all over the country, her writing has appeared in numerous journals and magazines in the last few years. She was been nominated for the 1995 Human Rights Award for Poetry for her poem "Native Title Now". The poem provides the title of an exhibition of Aboriginal art currently touring Australia.

Southerly, the ASA's Australian Author, Australian Short Stories and The Australian Multicultural Review are just some of the journals which have published her poetry.

Lisa Bellear has read at literary festivals, pubs and conferences in Australia and in the USA. In 1996 she was the Writer-in-Residence at the Australian Catholic University. She was Deputy Chair of the 1995 International Feminist Bookfair and was invited to read poetry and give the keynote address at the official opening of this international event. For the past two years she has sat on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Literature Panel of the Australia Council as well as sitting on the selection committee of the RAKA (Ruth Adney Koori) Award.

Recognition of Lisa's talents, particularly in combining images through poetry, photography and video, is growing with invitations to appear at the Adelaide Festival, the Fraser Festival ofLiterature, the Benalla Festival and the National Poetry Festival in 1996 where she read and exhibited her art.

When asked about her 'career highlights', Lisa cites a conference in Canberra in 1990 at which she read for the first time impromptu and with confidence. This reading led to her first non-educational publication (in Refractory Girl) and her first mainstream radio performance on Radio National.

Lisa is currently teaching at the University of Queensland and working on her second collection of poetry.