Rosanna Alish Waterland (born 30 May 1986) is an Australian comedian, author, screenwriter, and actress. Waterland first rose to popularity in 2013 with her satirical recaps of the first season of ''
The Bachelor Australia
''The Bachelor Australia'' is a reality television adaptation of the U.S. series of the same name. The series, hosted by Osher Günsberg, first premiered on Network 10 on 8 September 2013. Its success resulted in spin-offs ''The Bachelorette A ...
''. Fellow author and ABC presenter Richard Glover called what she did "the best television writing since
Clive James
Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.
Books
Waterland's first book, ''The Anti Cool Girl'', published by
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...
in 2015, was a critically acclaimed national bestseller. It was shortlisted for two Indie Book Awards, the Russell Prize for Humour Writing and two Australian Book Industry Awards, including best biography and best new writer of the year. It won the Australian Book Industry Awards People's Choice Award for Best New Writer of the Year. ''The Anti Cool Girl'' sold over 45,000 in its first few months in stores, making it one of the most popular young Australian memoirs in recent memory.
Waterland's second book, ''Every Lie I've Ever Told'', was published in July 2017. It also went on to become a national bestseller, subsequently being named number 41 in the Dymocks Top 101 Books Of All Time list.
In April 2019, it was announced that Waterland had signed a significant two-book fiction deal with HarperCollins Australia. The first of these books will be published in 2021.
Along with her own books, Waterland has also been featured in several popular anthologies. These include ''Mothers and Others'', ''Better Than Sex'', ''Best Australian Comedy Writing'' and ''Choice Words - A collection of writing about abortion'.''
Waterland's written work has also been published by the Mamamia Women's Network (where she was a senior editor until 2015), Huffington Post US, UK and Germany, Role Reboot, Cleo magazine,
Cosmopolitan magazine
''Cosmopolitan'' is an American monthly fashion and entertainment magazine for women, first published based in New York City in March 1886 as a family magazine; it was later transformed into a literary magazine and, since 1965, has become a wome ...
, Harper's Bazaar, Sunday Life and Spectrum.
Television
Waterland has been a contributing writer and actress on multiple Australian TV shows, most notably ABC's ''Tonightly'' and Channel Ten's ''Sisters''. She was also co-star and creator of ABC satirical political documentary series, ''What’s Going On: With Jamila Rizvi and Rosie Waterland'', which first aired in 2016 and can now be seen on ABC iView.
Waterland currently has two TV shows in development with Australian production companies.
Stage tours
Waterland debuted her first live one-woman show at the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typical ...
in March 2016, called "My Life On The Couch (with vodka)". The show sold out every performance, and she took the show on a sold-out national tour in October of the same year. She toured Australia with her second one-woman show, "Crazy Lady", in September 2017.
Waterland's next one-woman show, ''Kid Chameleon'', begins touring nationally in February 2020.
Podcasting
In 2017, Rosie created and produced a podcast based on her first book, ''The Anti-Cool Girl'', called ''Mum Says My Memoir Is A Lie''. ''Mum Says'' was hugely popular and critically acclaimed, going on to win the 2018 Australian Commercial Radio Award (ACRA) for Best Original Podcast.
''Mum Says My Memoir Is A Lie'' topped the iTunes Podcast chart in its first week of release and continued to appear on the Top Ten chart throughout its weekly episode drops. To date, ''Mum Says'' has been downloaded more than 6 million times.
Rosie's current podcast, ''Just The Gist'', also produced by PodcastOne, rose to number one on the Apple Podcast chart as soon as it was announced in 2019, and has continued to chart highly ever since.
Personal life
In December 2016, Waterland came out publicly as bisexual.
On 25 March 2019 she featured in ABC TV's ''
Australian Story
''Australian Story'' is a national weekly current affairs and documentary style television series which is broadcast on ABC Television. It is produced specifically by the ABC News and Current Affairs Department. The program first aired on 2 ...