Marlee Silva
Marlee Silva is a proud Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman born and raised on Dharrawal country, south of Sydney. Storytelling has always been a big part of Marlee's life.
Her mum tells people she stopped reading bedtime stories to Marlee and her sister, Keely, by the time Marlee was five, because she'd started making them up herself. Even when Marlee ran into her kindergarten teacher a few years into university and told them she was studying creative writing, they laughed, 'No way, after all these years you're still telling stories?' It seems this was always meant to be her path.
Her passion for storytelling and pride in her Aboriginality came together in a new and dynamic way in 2018 when she launched an Instagram page dedicated to celebrating Indigenous women and girls, which she called 'Tiddas 4 Tiddas'. The positive stories of success and aspiration the page showcases quickly amassed an online following in the thousands and eventually led to the development of a podcast of the same name. The Tiddas 4 Tiddas community, and the stories of the staunch Aboriginal women in the family with whom she was raised, were the driving inspirations behind Marlee's debut book, My Tidda, My Sister.
