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Ellen van Neerven Ellen van Neerven i(A144258 works by) (a.k.a. Ellen Van Neerven-Currie)
Born: Established: 1990 ;
Gender: Non-binary
Heritage: Aboriginal ; Dutch ; Aboriginal Mununjali / Munaldjali ; Aboriginal Bundjalung
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BiographyHistory

Writer and editor Ellen van Neerven is a descendant of the Mununjali (Yugambeh) people from Beaudesert; their father was Dutch. Ellen grew up in Brisbane, where they attended Albany Creek High School; in 2010, Van Neerven graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in Creative Writing Production. In 2011, Ellen was granted a mentorship with black & write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project as an editing mentor, after which they were appointed as a black & write! Indigenous editor.

It was in their twenties that Van Neerven began to take writing seriously, although their love of writing began when they were six, encouraged by their grade one teacher. In 2013, Ellen won the David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer in the Queensland Literary Awards for their short-story collection Heat and Light. In addition to the Unaipon Award, the collection has won the Dobbie Award and the Indigenous Writer's Prize (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance, the Steel Rudd Award (Queensland Literary Awards), and the Prize for Indigenous Writing (Victorian Premier's Literary Awards).

Their second book, the poetry collection Comfort Food, was published in 2016, when it was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry (NSW Premier's Literary Awards). Ellen released their third book, Throat, in 2020, which was published by UQP.

Exhibitions

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Personal Score St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2023 25552969 2023 multi chapter work autobiography essay

'Personal Score is a ground-breaking book that confirms, once again, van Neerven’s unrivalled talent, courage and originality.

'Award-winning writer Ellen van Neerven plays football from a young age, learning early on that sport can be a painful and exclusive world. The more they play, the more they realise about sport’s troubled relationship with race, gender and sexuality – and question what it means to play sport on stolen, sovereign land, especially in the midst of multiple environmental crises.

'With emotional honesty and searing insight, van Neerven shines a light on sport on this continent from a queer First Nations perspective, revealing how some athletes have long challenged mainstream views and used their roles to effect change not only in their own realm, but in society more broadly.' (Publication summary)

2024 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
2024 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous Writing
y separately published work icon Unlimited Futures Unlimited Futures : Speculative, Visionary Blak and Black Fiction Fremantle : Fremantle Press , 2022 23419495 2022 anthology short story

'Unlimited Futures is an anthology of Own Voice speculative fiction from 21 emerging and established First Nations writers and Black writers, reflecting visionary pasts, hopeful futures and the invisible ties between First Nations people and People of Colour.

'With works by Tuesday Atzinger, Flora Chol, Claire Coleman, Zena Cumpston, Lisa Fuller, Meleika Gasa-Fatafehi, Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Chemutai Glasheen, Genevieve Grieves, Rafeif Ismail, Ambelin Kwaymullina, Laniyuk, Maree McCathy Yoelu, Jasmin McGaughey, SJ Minniecon, Sisonke Msimang, Merryana Salem, Mykaela Saunders, Aïsha Trambas, Alison Whittaker and Jasper Wyld, this is an anthology of the tales they wish had existed when they were growing up in Australia.'

Source : publisher's blurb

2022 shortlisted Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Anthology Division
y separately published work icon Throat St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2020 18673599 2020 selected work poetry

'Throat is the explosive second poetry collection from award-winning Mununjali Yugambeh writer Ellen van Neerven. Exploring love, language and land, van Neerven flexes their distinctive muscles and shines alight on Australia’s unreconciled past and precarious present with humour and heart. Van Neerven is unsparing in the interrogation of colonial impulse, and fiercely loyal to telling the stories that make us who we are.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2022 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards John Bray Award for Poetry
2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Multicultural NSW Award
2020 inaugural winner UQP Quentin Bryce Award
2021 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Book of the Year
2021 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
2021 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Poetry
2020 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Award
Last amended 15 Nov 2021 13:01:54
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