Anne Buist is an Australian researcher and practising

psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry. Psychiatrists are physicians who evaluate patients to determine whether their symptoms are the result of a physical illness, a combination of physical and mental ailments or strictly ...

specializing in women's mental health, in particular postpartum psychiatric illnesses. She is also a novelist, author of the Natalie King crime fiction series, and co-author, with her husband

Graeme Simsion Graeme C. Simsion is a New Zealand-born Australian author, screenwriter, playwright, and Data modeling, data modeller, best known for his first novel ''The Rosie Project''. Early life and education Simsion was born in New Zealand and moved to ...

, of the novels '' Two Steps Forward'' (2017) and ''Two Steps Onward'' (2021).

Education

Buist has an M.B.B.S. from

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

in 1981 and was admitted as a Fellow of the

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is the principal organisation representing the medical specialty of psychiatry in Australia and New Zealand and has responsibility for training, examining and awarding the qua ...

in 1989. She has an MMed from the University of Melbourne for research into infants exposed to antidepressants in breastmilk in 1992, and an MD from the University of Melbourne in 1999 for her study of the long-term effects of childhood abuse.

Psychiatric and Research Career

From 1993 to 1997, Buist was Director of Psychiatry at the

Mercy Hospital for Women, Melbourne :''See Mercy Hospital (disambiguation), Mercy Hospital for other medical facilities with the Mercy name.'' Mercy Hospital for Women, is based in Heidelberg, Victoria, Heidelberg adjacent to the Austin Hospital, Melbourne, Austin Hospital. The hosp ...

, and was then appointed Associate Professor at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

in 1997, and became the Professor and Director of Women's Mental Health in 2006. Buist has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and "Psychiatric Disorders Associated with Children" (1995) She is also the past president of the Australasian Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health., and was the director of the

Beyond Blue Beyond Blue is an Australian mental health and wellbeing support organisation. They provide support programs to address issues related to depression, suicide, anxiety disorders and other related mental illnesses. The organisation works in par ...

postnatal depression program from 2001 to 2005.

Fiction writer

Buist has written novels in the genres of crime and erotica, and also a psychiatric text. (under the pseudonym Simone Sinna, an anagram of her married name, Anne Simsion) wer
ten novels and novellas
of contemporary paranormal and crime

erotica Erotica is art, literature or photography that deals substantively with subject matter that is erotic, sexually stimulating or sexually arousing. Some critics regard pornography as a type of erotica, but many consider it to be different. Erot ...

(published by Siren Publishing from 2011 to 2014 In 2015, she began to publish mainstream crime, with protagonist Natalie King, a forensic psychiatrist with

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

. The first of these was ''Medea’s Curse'' (which shortlisted for the Davitt Awards (Best Adult Novel and Best Debut Crime categories)''. )'', followed by ''Dangerous to Know'' (2016), and then ''This I Would Kill For'' (January 2018). In 2015 '' Two Steps Forward'', a novel co-authored with her husband Graeme Simsion, was published in 2017. In April 2020 her crime novel, ''The Long Shadow'', was published by

Text Publishing Text Publishing is an Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria. Company background Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along with designer Chong Weng Ho and oth ...

. In Jan 2024, The Glass House, co-written with Simsion, was published by Hachette Australia. ''Medea’s Curse'' has been optioned by Causeway Films and Two Steps Forward by Fox Searchlight with

Ellen DeGeneres Ellen Lee DeGeneres ( ; born January 26, 1958) is an American former comedian, actress, television host, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy in the early 1980s, gaining national attention with a 1986 appearance on '' ...

' A Very Good Production to produce.

Personal life

Buist has been married to novelist

since 1989 and they have two children. In 2011, she and Simsion walked the Camino de Santiago de Compostela (Le Chemin de St. Jacques de Compostell) from Cluny in central France, which inspired their joint novel ''Two Steps Forward''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buist, Anne Australian women psychiatrists Australian psychiatrists Australian women novelists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)