Writer by day and cinema projectionist by night, Criss Gidas is a Greek-Australian novelist and screenwriter.
Criss was awarded a highly competitive two-week Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers' Centre Fellowship, which offers authors residential writing placements in Perth, Western Australia, joining a select group of authors chosen for their literary merit. A graduate of Faber Writing Academy’s Writing a Speculative Fiction Novel 2025/2026 programme at Allen & Unwin with author J. S. Breukelaar, she completed Write Your Novel Masterclass with Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Sofie Laguna, and the Deep Reading For Writers course with Stella Prize/Miles Franklin Award nominee Emily Maguire at Varuna, The National Writers’ House. She’s currently completing Faber Writing Academy’s Edit & Submit Your Novel course with Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award winner Nell Pierce.
An excerpt from Criss’s novel BLACKSPIRE appears in the Faber Writing Academy Anthology, featuring submission-ready graduates of Faber Writing Academy, and was presented at the anthology’s Brisbane launch as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival, a sold-out event at Brisbane Powerhouse.
She was highly commended for the 2025 Varuna Writers’ Space Online Fellowship and mentored by Aurealis and Ditmar Award-winning speculative fiction writer Kaaron Warren.
Before novels, Criss wrote and directed for the screen. Her self-funded debut feature, Canvas, premiered at the Gold Coast Film Festival in 2022. Her screenwriting has been recognised by Stowe Story Labs, CineStory, Stage32, and Screen Queensland. She took part in Screen Queensland’s Creative Consultations.
