Anissa Ljanta
Award-winning writer
I’m a writer with an extraordinary life story.
I’ve lived in a war zone, in communes, cities and the wilds, writing through it all.
Proudly neurodivergent, writing is how I make sense of the world.
Some of my words
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Review: She is Not Your Rehab
She is Not Your Rehab: A book that’s a roadmap for the hard work of healing. It was an honour to be asked to review Mataio & Sarah Brown’s book about abuse, masculinity and hope.
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A Custom-built Life
My feature, A Custom-Built Life, made the cover of NZ Geographic’s 2023 Being Teen issue.
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Fifty New Things
Anissa reading her short story, Fifty New Things. This story placed second in the 2021 NZSA Graeme Lay Short Story Competition. Here is Graeme talking about the winning entries.
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The Way Forward
My essay, The Way Forward, won a Creator of Justice Award at the 2022 International Human Rights Arts Festival.
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Yellow in the Dark
One of my favourite stories of that year, Yellow in the Dark was shortlisted in the Te Tauihu 2022 Short Story Awards.
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Review: A Gentle Radical
The Way We Leave the World is my book review of A Gentle Radical, the biography of Jeanette Fitzsimons by her friend and colleague, Gareth Hughes, in the Spinoff.
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Super Natural Growing Power
A feature, Super Natural Growing Power, in Organic NZ magazine on Pakaraka Permaculture.
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Differently Wired, Not Broken
Book list starter pack on neurodivergence for children, teens, educators and parents for The Sapling, Aotearoa’s go-to website for children’s books. Written end of 2022.
My short story, Fifty New Things, won second in the 2021 NZSA Graeme Lay Short Story Competition. My short stories were shortlisted in the 2021 NZSA Northland Short Story competition & Cambridge Autumn Festival Short Story Competition and I had an essay shortlisted in the 2021 Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne Essay Prize in association with Headlands Literary Journal and Massey University.
I was a regular contributor at Extracurricular Magazine, worked editorial for NZ Soil & Health, was a reviewer and features writer at Organic NZ magazine, a columnist at The Washington Spark, and clocked seven years of content writing for Do Good Jobs.
My lifestyle blog, GrowMama, had tens of thousands of readers back in the blogging heyday, with some posts going viral.
I’ve had work in NZ Geographic, The Spinoff, Element magazine, Stuff News, The Book of Brilliants, Organic Explorer, Communities Magazine, Rain and Thunder, Altogether Autism Journal.
As a comms manager specialising in community building I’ve managed social media and written newsletters people actually wanted to read for a range of not-for-profit initiatives like Garden to Table, The Funding Network and DECA -Digital Equity Coalition Aotearoa. These days my focus is on creative writing.
Wild of Brain, the Book
Funny, honest and startling at times, this is the story of one woman’s late in life double whammy diagnoses of Autism and ADHD+. Wild of Brain maps the messy and revelatory moments of exploring a wayward and brilliant brain, flashes back to snapshots of a wild life lived on the periphery.
This book is a hybrid of memoir, personal essays and shudder, self help.
OUT SOON - June 2024
Special thanks to Michael King Writers Centre
I am deeply grateful to the team at the Michael King Writers Centre for the gift of uninterrupted writing time after the devastation Cyclone Gabrielle wreaked on our community and land.
It’s an honour to be in the pages of the MKWC visitor book with such literary giants.
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Tips, tools and insights for neurodivergent folks.
Soapbox social commentary and disability advocacy with occasional forays into community-led systems change geekery.
The occasional essay, short story & questionable poetry.
ALL THE GOOD STUFF!
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