VIVIENNE CLEVEN was born in 1968 in Surat, Queensland. Her nation is Kamilaroi. She left school at the age of thirteen to work with her father as a jillaroo: building fences, mustering cattle, and working at various jobs on stations throughout Queensland and New South Wales. Her novel, Bitin’ Back, won the David Unaipon Award in 2000, and was shortlisted for the Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award and the South Australian Premier’s Award for Fiction in 2002. Her novel Sister’s Eye, published in 2002, was chosen in the 2003 People’s Choice shortlist of One Book One Brisbane. Bitin’ Back is her first play.