Maria Lewis

Early life and education

Lewis was born in Arrowtown, New Zealand on the South Island before moving to the Gold Coast, Queensland with her mother and grandparents. She is of Maori ancestry and has dual citizenship for Australia and New Zealand. She received a Bachelor of Journalism from Bond University in Australia.

Career

She started her journalism career at the age of 16 as a cadet at the Gold Coast Bulletin covering the crime and police beat for several years. After several years at the publication she joined The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph in Sydney as an entertainment writer. She also worked as show business reporter at the Daily Mail Australia. As a freelance writer her stories have appeared in publications such as Empire Magazine, Penthouse, Junkee, New York Post, SFX Magazine, News.com.au, NineMSN, Daily Life, Spook Magazine, Yahoo7, Herald Sun, BuzzFeed, WHO Weekly and Bloody Disgusting.

She is an outspoken pop culture and social commentator with appearances on Sydney radio station 2SER 107.3FM, Lewis has appeared as a panelist on The Feed on SBS2 several times discussing queer representation in mainstream television and feminism in film. She joined the nightly news program full-time in 2015 writing, producing, presenting and acting in segments. In April, 2015 it was announced Lewis would serve as the writer and producer on a documentary about George Miller's failed Justice League movie titled Justice League Mortal. In an interview with Dark Horizons she said: "There has always been an interest in this story and now seems like the best time to try and tell it from the perspective of people who tried to bring that fantastical vision to the big screen".

Writing

On November 14, 2014, Piatkus Fiction and Little Brown Books in London announced they would be publishing her debut novel Who's Afraid? – the first in a five book urban fantasy series with werewolf protagonist Tommi Grayson. The book was released in Australia and New Zealand through Hachette on January 12 and received a strong response in her home territories. Quentin Tarantino requested a personalised copy from the author when he was in Australia and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lexi Alexander called it "Truly one of the best in the genre I have ever read" and said that she was interested in adapting it for the screen, while New York Times best-selling author Darynda Jones said: "Gripping, fast-paced and completely unexpected, Who's Afraid? has more twists than a tornado. I loved this story! Maria Lewis is definitely one to watch." It follows a young woman who learns that she's a werewolf and is inspired by the "proto-feminist characters" Lewis grew up with such as She-Hulk, Lt. Ripley, Buffy, Korra, Scully and Wonder Woman. Who's Afraid? was published internationally in July, 2016 and the sequel Who's Afraid Too? is due for release January 17, 2017. Who's Afraid? was a finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre in 2013. She also wrote a "standalone science-fiction mystery" called It Came From The Deep about a merman in a "similar vein to the classic creature features, like a subversion of The Creature From The Black Lagoon" as part of National Novel Writing month, which is due for publication. Lewis' crime story The Bushwalker Butcher was selected for Clan Destine Press' And Then… adventure anthology with her describing the piece as a "riff on Scooby Doo" in an interview with AngelaSlatter.com. She wrote graphic novel The Dark Nights in 2014, which was based on the Aurora shooting massacre and illustrated by Scottish artist Jenny Heubeck. She also collaborated with street and tattoo artist Jak Skallywag on The Watcher In The Lake, which was collected as part of the horror comic book anthology from Berlin's Horror Internazional. She was one of four women who contributed to Harper Collins' anthology Hot Stuff: Surfing Love which is due for release in December, 2015.

Personal life

Lewis is an ambassador for the National Stroke Foundation after having suffered a stroke in 2012 when she was 22. She has appeared on television and radio promoting stroke awareness and talking about young stroke survivors. She described her stroke event as the "most terrifying moments of my life" and was later diagnosed as having a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA). In a promotional video for the National Stroke Foundation she said: "The family friendly term is a mini-stroke which makes it sound fun, it's like a fun size stroke. But no strokes are fun sized as I quickly learned… Everyone knows someone affected by stroke and there's just no awareness about it because stroke isn't sexy. Things don't need to be sexy. Sometimes they just need to be really, crucially, vitally important and stroke awareness is so important." In an article for the Gold Coast Bulletin, she said a fear of death following the stroke helped motivate her to pursue a literary career. She is an outspoken feminist and co-host and producer of the Eff Yeah Film & Feminism podcast. She has also appeared as a guest on other podcasts, such as the popular true crime show Generation Why where she discussed Australian serial killer Peter Dupas.