Grantlee Kieza Bio

Grantlee Kieza’s father arrived in Ballarat in the 1950s as part of one of the largest post-war Polish migrations to Australia. His mother descended from a Scottish family who arrived in the Victorian goldfields in the 1850s. Grantlee first lived at a home where his grandfather had established a dairy farm in the 1920s after serving with the railway engineers on the Western Front in WW1. 

Kieza moved to Brisbane as a child, completing his secondary education at Ipswich Grammar School before moving into a journalism career at 17. He specialised in sports writing, at a time which also saw him become an assistant trainer to Johnny Lewis, one of Australia’s best boxing coaches. He worked in this role, and covered world title fights around the world in between the early 1980s and the late 2010s. 

Grantlee Kieza’s first book was a biography on Jeff Fenech in 1988. He then moved on to general history books on specific sports between 1988 and 2010, when he started writing some of the big Australian biographies. 

Today, he lives in Brisbane with his wife Colleen. 

Grantlee Kieza OAM and award winning journalist 

Grantlee Kieza is an award–winning journalist who has held senior editorial posts at The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Courier Mail. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his writing. He has also been awarded with three Queensland Media Awards and two Australian Sports Commission Awards. 

Kieza was inducted into the Australian Boxing Hall of Fame in 2018 for both his sports-writing and his time spent as an assistant trainer for some of the country’s best boxers including Jeff Fenech. 

He is also a Walkley Award finalist, a shortlisted author for Biography of the Year at the 2025 ABIA awards, a shortlisted author for Non-fiction at the 2025 Indie Awards and Australia’s number 1 history author in 2024. 

Grantlee Kieza got his love of history, and was inspired by his grandfather who fought in World War 1. Being on the Western Front, Kieza’s grandfather had many stories to tell including those of lost friends. HIs father also had his own stories to tell after serving in World War 2. 

At around 10 years of age, he was gifted with a book about Australian history. Called Australia’s Yesteryear, and published by Reader’s Digest, the book looked at each decade in Australia and how life had changed from decade to decade, from the 1800s to modern times. 

Grantlee Kieza books in publication order

Grantlee Kieza has published 20 books in the Australian history and biography genres. 

Australian Boxing (1990)

The Retriever with Keith Schafferius (2011)

Bert Hinkler (2012)

Sons of the Southern Cross (2014)

Monash (2015)

Mrs Kelly (2017)

The Hornet with Jeff Horn (2017)

Macquarie (2019)

Banks (2020)

Lawson (2021)

The Kelly Hunters (2022)

Hudson Fysh (2022)

The Remarkable Mrs Reibey (2023)

Knockout (2023)

Flinders (2023)

Sister Viv (2024)

Mr and Mrs Gould (2024)

Annette Kellerman, Australian Mermaid (2025)

Mary Penfold (2025)

Ellen Savage and the Heroes of AHS Centaur (2026)

Ellen Savage and the AHS Centaur

Grantlee Kieza’s latest book is Ellen Savage and the Heroes of the AHS Centaur. This book explores the sinking of the hospital ship Centaur and how it is one of Australia’s devastating wartime tragedies. The Centaur was carrying 268 people on a mission of mercy when it was torpedoed by a Japanese sub off the coast of Brisbane. Sinking in just three minutes, and resting 2000 metres below the surface, nurse Ellen Savage was the only woman to survive the sinking. She tended to the wounded for 34 hours in shark infested waters with her own injuries. 

This is an inspiring story of survival, courage and heroism.