Maria Lewis is an author, screenwriter and film curator based in Australia. Getting her start as a police reporter, her writing on pop culture has appeared in publications such as the New York Post, Guardian, Penthouse, The Daily Mail, Empire Magazine, Gizmodo, Huffington Post, The Daily and Sunday Telegraph, i09, Junkee and many more. A journalist for over 16 years, she transitioned into working in television as a segment producer, writer and guest presenter on live nightly news program The Feed on SBS. She works as a screenwriter for television, film and children’s animation

Her best-selling debut novel Who’s Afraid? was published in 2016, followed by its sequel Who’s Afraid Too? in 2017, which was nominated for Best Horror Novel at the Aurealis Awards. Who’s Afraid? is currently being developed for television. Her Young Adult debut, It Came From The Deep, was released globally in 2018, followed by her fourth book, The Witch Who Courted Death, which won Best Fantasy Novel at the Aurealis Awards in 2019.

Her fifth novel set within the shared supernatural universe – The Wailing Woman – was nominated for Best Fantasy Novel at the Aurealis Awards in 2020, followed by the publication of her sixth novel, Who’s Still Afraid?, and book seven The Rose Daughter. The host, writer and producer of the limited podcast series Josie & The Podcats about the 2001 cult film, she’s a film curator at Australia’s national museum of screen culture.