Nic Gill is an award-winning Tasmanian author and conservation dog handler who writes on nature, humans and other animals for readers of all ages. Her writing has featured in The Monthly, Island, The Guardian, Good Weekend and The Best Australian Science Writing.
Her first book for younger readers, Animal Eco-Warriors, was a CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) Notable Book in 2018, while Poo, Spew and Other Gross Things Animals Do, written with her friend Dr Romane Cristescu and illustrated by Rachel Tribout, won a Whitley Award for Best Children’s Investigative Zoology Book. Nic and Rom also paired up as co-authors for their first picture book, Bear to the Rescue (CSIRO Publishing, 2025), illustrated by Sylvia Morris.
When she is not busy writing, Nic works as a field ecologist, often with her own conservation detection dogs, Zorro, Gromit and Morello, in the Tasmanian wilds. She recently became President of the Australasian Conservation Dog Network. While researching Animal Eco-Warriors, Nic met Rom and her extraordinary conservation detection dog, Maya. Nic was so impressed that she was inspired to become a conservation dog researcher herself.
As such, it seems only fair that the first book in her new series, Sniff Squad, will profile the dog that started it all. Maya Follows Her Nose will be out in late 2026 through UWA Publishing and will be the first in a four-book series inspired by the true stories of Australia’s real working conservation detection dogs. (Just make sure no one tells her dogs they are not in it.)