Bobbi Sykes: Contents page

Bobbi Sykes (b.1943). Roberta (Bobbi) Sykes was born and grew up in Townsville. Formally educated to the age of fourteen, she worked at various jobs before moving to Sydney in 1971. She became a freelance journalist and was associated with a range of Black organisations across the nation. After years of self-education, and lecturing experience at various Australian universities, she completed a Masters degree and then her doctorate in education at Harvard University. While studying she won the Patricia Weickert Black Writers Award (Australia 1982). In 1994 she won the Australian Human Rights Medal. Bobbi Sykes works as a consultant and lecturer — to support her writing habit — and is a frequent international traveller, in demand for poetry readings and conference and lecture presentations. Her publications include MumShirl (1981), which has been translated and published in Italy; Incentive, Achievement and Community (1986); Black Majority (1989); Murwina: Australian Women of High Achievement (1993) and the three-volume autobiography Snake Dreaming (1997-2000). Her earlier poetry book Love Poems and Other Revolutionary Actions (1988) has been translated and published in Germany.