Cirrus@Austlit

Christine Nicholls is a writer, curator and Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies, formerly from Flinders University in Adelaide, SA, and later at ANU. Born in SA, and educated largely in Sydney, from 1982-1992 Nicholls worked at Lajamanu, a remote Aboriginal settlement in the Tanami Desert of the Northern Territory, first as a linguist and then as the Principal of the local Warlpiri Lajamanu School. She subsequently held the position of Principal Education Officer with responsibility for the Northern Territory's bilingual educational programmes in Indigenous languages and English.

Nicholls has published more than 100 articles about Indigenous Australian art and languages, and has recently published a biography of Eastern Anmatyerr artist Kathleen Petyarre, in a book entitled Kathleen Petyarre: Genius of Place, co-authored by Professor Ian North. She has been involved in editing a series of English translations of Dreaming narratives by Warlpiri and Kukatja people, suitable for use in primary school classrooms in Australia and overseas, and has published an introduction to Indigenous art for Primary School children, Art, Land, Story (2003). She was also a contributor to the Macmillan anthology First Contacts and is the author of several educational history works aimed at primary-school users and included in the National Curriculum: Many Language, Many Cultures; Country, Dreaming, Ancestors; and Language, Life, Country (all published by Macmillan Education Australia, 2015).