Kirli Saunders OAM

About Kirli

Kirli Saunders OAM is a proud Gunai woman, poet, playwright, multidisciplinary artist and educator whose work sits at the centre of First Nations arts, education and advocacy. She was named NSW Aboriginal Woman of the Year at the 2020 NSW Women of the Year Awards, and was awarded an OAM in 2022 for her contribution to the arts, particularly literature. Her books include The Incredible Freedom Machines (2018), Kindred (2019), Bindi (2020), Returning (2023) and Eclipse (2025); Bindi alone won the Queensland Literary Awards Children's Book Award, the Western Australian Premier's Daisy Utemorrah Award and an Australian Book Industry Award.

As a speaker and Master of Ceremonies, Kirli brings an artist's sensibility and an advocate's conviction to every event she is part of. She speaks with depth and authority on First Nations culture and rights, reconciliation, Indigenous literature, the role of the environment in both Indigenous and contemporary storytelling, women's leadership, and the place of the arts in education. She has led community programs including Poetry in First Languages and Re[ad]generate, and serves on Merrigong Theatre's First Nations Advisory Group. Her presentations are not conventional keynotes — they are lyrical and deliberately immersive.

Kirli is a considered choice for arts, education, government and diversity events that want to engage seriously with First Nations knowledge, culture and creativity rather than gesture at it. As an MC she brings a cultural depth and a distinct register that change the feel of an entire event. In 2025 she received the University of Wollongong's Dr Guy Warren AM Award for Arts and Culture.