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Leni Shilton Leni Shilton i(A80384 works by)
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Leni Shilton is a poet, teacher and researcher. She grew up in Papua New Guinea and Melbourne and has lived in Mparntwe | Alice Springs for thirty-five years (as of 2022). She has worked in bush nursing, prison education, Indigenous tertiary education, and in domestic violence community development work.

Her writing is regularly published in journals and anthologies in Australia and internationally. She has a PhD in Creative Writing. Leni was a founding member of Ptilotus Press (now Running Waters Community Press), a community-based small press located in central Australia.

Leni has written two verse novels: Walking with Camels : The Story of Bertha Strehlow (UWAP, 2018), and Malcolm : A Story in Verse (UWAP, 2019). In 2020, Leni was a guest of the Perth Festival for Literature & Ideas, and the NT Writers Festival in Darwin. Her verse novel Walking with Camels won the 2020 NT Chief Ministers Fiction Book Award.

Leni is a regular judge of national literary awards including the 2020 Stella Prize and the 2021/22 Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript with UWA Publishing. In 2021, she received a Varuna/Arts NT Virtual Fellowship, and in 2022 she received a KSP Residential Fellowship and an Arts NT development grant.

Her writing focuses on the power of writing landscape and place in poetry, giving voice to the unheard, the silenced, and exploring issues of mental health and depression. Her literary and professional careers have coalesced with a focus on supporting and enabling people to tell their stories.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2023 finalist The Joanne Burns Award
2022 shortlisted Northern Territory Literary Awards Poetry Award for 'For My Sister, on Our Holiday'.
2020 shortlisted Northern Territory Literary Awards Poetry Award for 'Brown Goshawk'.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Walking With Camels : The Story of Bertha Strehlow Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2018 12947727 2018 selected work poetry

'Leni Shilton offers us a woman’s exploration of loss and survival in the unforgiving and beautiful landscape of central Australia. Bertha Strehlow, overshadowed by her anthropologist husband’s achievements, was a woman of integrity and a brilliant observer and connector of people in settings such as the Great Sandy Desert over many years of endurance. In this volume, Leni Shilton restores to her a voice.'  (Publication summary)

2020 winner Territory Read Book of the Year Chief Minister's NT Book Awards Fiction
If I Speak from under the Earth i "I speak from under the earth, the desert a red beast over me. History is layers of", 2015 single work poetry
— Appears in: Underneath : The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor's International Poetry Prize 2015 2015; (p. 80)
2015 longlisted The University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize
Josh's Story 2008 single work short story
— Appears in: Northern Territory Literary Awards 2008 2008; (p. 102-109)
2008 finalist Northern Territory Literary Awards Short Story Award
Last amended 19 Jul 2022 10:26:31
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