About Amal Awad
Amal Awad is a Palestinian-Australian writer, director and performer whose work explores culture, identity and the stories we tell about ourselves. She’s written for publications including The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, ELLE, Meanjin and Frankie, and has also produced and presented programs for ABC Radio National. Much of Amal’s work centres on social and cultural commentary, with a strong focus on women’s experiences, media and popular culture.
Books
Amal is the author of eight books, across fiction and non-fiction. Her novels include Courting Samira (2011), This is How You Get Better (2015), The Things We See in the Light (2021), and Bitter & Sweet (2023). Her non-fiction titles—The Incidental Muslim: Undiluted Perspectives on Life, Love, and Pop Culture (2014), Beyond Veiled Clichés: The Real Lives of Arab Women (2017), Fridays With My Folks – Stories on Ageing, Illness and Life (2019), and In My Past Life I was Cleopatra (2021)—reflect her ongoing interest in personal storytelling, community, and the complexities of everyday life.
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In 2024, Bitter & Sweet was voted into Better Reading magazine’s ‘Better Reading’s Top 100’ list. She has also contributed to the anthologies Growing Up Muslim in Australia and Some Girls Do … (My Life as a Teenager).
Film & Television
Alongside her work in publishing and broadcasting, Amal also works across film and television as an award-winning screenwriter, director and actor. She’s participayed in writers’ rooms with some of Australia’s leading production companies, including Porchlight, Fremantle, Wooden Horse, Roadshow Rough Diamond and Endemol Shine.
Her TV series Over My Dead Body received development funding from Screen Australia and Screen NSW, and she is a writer on Plausible Deniability (Random Pictures), which earned her an Outstanding Achievement in Writing award at the NYC Web Fest.
Amal worked closely with director Ana Kokkinos as a director’s attachment on Ten Pound Poms Season 1 (BBC/Stan), returning for Season 2 as director’s assistant and directing additional units across both seasons.
She has since written and directed a short film, The Open Cup, a powerful story about Arab womanhood and intergenerational cycles, which features a predominantly female cast and has an Official Selection in the Melbourne Women in Film Festival 2026.
Beyond writing and TV & film, Amal has served in senior editorial leadership roles across major trade publications, shaping coverage and reporting with depth and expertise on sectors ranging from financial services and property to pharmacy.
Speaking
Amal has appeared as a speaker or panelist at schools, universities and writers’ festivals around Australia, and she also facilitates workshops, covering topics such as diversity, multiculturalism, women’s issues and pop culture.
She has also been a regular panelist on ABC TV’s The Drum. In September 2019, she was a TEDx Macquarie University speaker, with a talk on ‘Moving beyond the token minority’ in film and television.
Website header photo: Dominika Ferenz