Nakkiah Lui

Nakkiah Lui is an award-winning writer/actor/director and Gomeroi/Torres Strait Islander woman. She began her playwriting career in 2013 with her first play, This Heaven (Belvoir St Theatre) and since then she has worked with every major theatre company in Australia.

In 2018, Nakkiah was the recipient of the Patrick White Playwrights Fellowship at Sydney Theatre Company followed by the Nick Enright Playwriting Prize in 2019.  In 2021, she was the recipient of the Russell Prize for Humour Writing for her play Black is the New White (Sydney Theatre Company).  

An AACTA and Logie nominated writer and actor, she was actor/writer/director/producer of the ground-breaking ABC series, Black Comedy which ran for four seasons from 2014 – 2109. Her impact on screen continued with AACTA nominated series,  Kiki and Kitty (2017) and Preppers (2021).

In 2022, Nakkiah became the first First Nations Australian to secure an exclusive television writing deal with HBO.

A true multi-hyphenate, Nakkiah launched her own imprint JOAN with Australia’s largest independent book publisher, Allen and Unwin in 2022 and has released three Audible podcasts, including Debutante, Pretty for an Aboriginal and the 2023 award-winning FIRST EAT.

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