Lisa Fuller

Middle-Grade Fiction
Written By ACT Region

Washpool

Hachette, 2025

A magical middle-grade adventure about two sisters who need to rely on their own wits and each other when they're pulled into a new world, from black&write! fellow and bestselling author, Lisa Fuller.

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This world looked as though it had been drawn in weird crayon colours ... There were no bird calls. No distant rustling of animals in the scrub. No breeze teasing the tops of the trees. Everything was still.

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Bella is shy and thoughtful. Her big sister, Cienna, is popular and brave. One thing they have in common is their love for Washpool, the local swimming spot. But one weekend when they dive into Washpool, Bella and Cienna surface in the strange new world of Muse.

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Lost and confused, the sisters find themselves working with magical creatures on an eye-opening quest. Lady Dragon - keeper of the land where an important Summer Feast is held - has lost her egg. Can Bella and Cienna save the egg in time? And how will they ever find their way home?

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A transportive middle-grade fantasy adventure.

Ghost Bird

UQP, 2019

UQP, 2019

Remember daughter, the world is a lot bigger than anyone knows. There are things that science may never explain. Maybe some things that shouldn’t be explained.

Stacey and Laney are twins – mirror images of each other – and yet they’re as different as the sun and the moon. Stacey works hard at school, determined to get out of their small town. Laney skips school and sneaks out of the house to meet her boyfriend. But when Laney disappears one night, Stacey can’t believe she’s just run off without telling her.

As the days pass and Laney doesn’t return, Stacey starts dreaming of her twin. The dreams are dark and terrifying, difficult to understand and hard to shake, but at least they tell Stacey one key thing – Laney is alive. It’s hard for Stacey to know what’s real and what’s imagined and even harder to know who to trust. All she knows for sure is that Laney needs her help.

Stacey is the only one who can find her sister. Will she find her in time?

“Ghost Bird kept me reading well into the night – with all the lights on! The novel draws you deep into the bonds between sisters, family, and community, and is a fantastic addition to the Australian speculative fiction scene, from a truly talented Murri author. This book is for everyone, and I loved it.”
— Amie Kaufman Judge, Readings YA prize

About the Author

Lisa Fuller is a Wuilli Wuilli woman from Eidsvold, Queensland, and is also descended from Gooreng Gooreng and Wakka Wakka peoples. She won the 2017 David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer, the 2018 Varuna Eleanor Dark Flagship Fellowship, was a joint winner of the 2018 Copyright Agency Fellowships for First Nations Writers, and placed second in the 2018 Feminartsy Memoir Prize. Lisa's young adult novel, Ghost Bird, won the Griffith University Young Adult Book Award in the Queensland Literary Awards, the Norma K Hemming Award, and Readings Young Adult Prize in 2020, and was shortlisted for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the 2021 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. She has previously published poetry, blogs and short fiction. Lisa is an editor and publishing consultant, and is passionate about culturally appropriate writing and publishing.

Lisa is a member of Us Mob Writing, the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, the First Nations Australia Writers Network, and the Canberra Society of Editors.

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