ELLEN VAN NEERVEN

Author & Poet

Ellen van Neerven (they/them) is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. Ellen‘s first book, Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), a novel-in-stories, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize.  Their first poetry collection Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) won the Tina Kane Emergent Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize. Throat (UQP, 2020) was the recipient of Book of the Year, the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Multicultural Award at 2021 NSW Literary Awards and the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award. Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity (UQP, 2023), a book that weaves history, memoir, journalism and poetry, is now available.

They are the editor of three collections, including the recent Homeland Calling: Words from a New Generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voices and Unlimited Futures with Sudanese multilingual writer Rafeif Ismail.

Ellen will feature in the Giiyong Festival 2023 Speakers Program.

Photo credit: Anna Jacobson