Lenora Thaker is a Meriam and Wagedagam woman from Gimuy (Cairns). She is published in anthologies: On Butterfly Wings, 2023, and Growing up Torres Strait Islander, 2024. She won the Writing NSW Boundless Award in 2021 for her manuscript about a family of Torres Strait Islanders living through the Second World War years, and was published in 2025 as the historical novel, The Pearl of Tagai Town.
Lenora was shortlisted for the 2026 Queensland Writer’s Centre Adaptable Program and got to pitch her novel to film and television producers.
Lenora is committed to the craft of storytelling and developing a literary Torres Strait Islander voice – something she believes is missing from Australia’s literary landscape. Lenora writes short stories and long-form narratives that incorporate Torres Strait Islander languages, and explores universal themes of love, family, politics and the clash of internal and external cultures.
