Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven (born 1990) is an Aboriginal Australian writer, educator and editor. Their first work of fiction, Heat and Light (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Award. Their second collection of poetry, Throat (2020), won three awards at the 2021 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, including Book of the Year.

Early life and education

Van Neerven was born in 1990 to Dutch and Aboriginal parents,^[1] and is of the Mununjali clan of the Yugambeh nation.^[2][3]

They studied creative writing at the Queensland University of Technology.^[4]

Writing career

Van Neerven first book, Heat and Light, won the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards' David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writers,^[5] the 2016 NSW Premier's Literary Award's Indigenous Writers Prize^[6] and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize in 2015.^[7]

Their second book, the poetry collection Comfort Food, was published in 2016. One of van Neerven's stories, Confidence Game, was featured in SBS podcast series and True Stories in 2015.^[8]

Throat (2020) is van Neerven's second collection of poems, and consists of five themed chapters:^[2] "The haunt-walk in"; "Whiteness is always approaching"; "I can't wait to meet my future genders"; "Speaking outside"; and " Take me to the back of my throat".^[9][10] Throat won three prizes at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: Book of the Year; the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry; and the Multicultural NSW Award.^[2]

Van Neerven has also had some of their poetry translated into their grandmother's Yugambeh language by Shaun Davies.^[11]

Van Neerven published a piece in Griffith Review about sport, entitled "No Limits", in September 2021.^[12] Described as "part creative memoir, part reportage, part theoretical essay and part history lesson", the piece examines the exclusionary nature of sport, which leads to a very low rate of participation by non-binary people.^[13]

In June 2024, text from two of van Neerven's works, titled Shoutlines and yaburuhma dugun (infinite sky) were shown on the Federation Square Big Screen, presented as part of 'The Blak Infinite' program at the 2024 RISING: festival in Melbourne.^[14]

Their first play, swim, produced by Griffin Theatre Company, premiered at the Carriageworks in Sydney in July 2024.^[15]

Personal life

They are openly queer^[16] and non-binary, using they/them pronouns.^[17]

Other activities

In September 2015, in a collaboration with Poets House in New York, a recording of six First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) members reading their work was presented at a special event, which was recorded. Van Neerven was one of the readers, along with Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Melissa Lucashenko, Bruce Pascoe, and Jared Thomas.^[18]

Van Neerven is co-host and creative producer of two podcasts,^[17] Extraordinary Voices for Extraordinary Times, launched in June 2020,^[19] and Between the Leaves, launched in October 2020.^[20][21]

Awards and honours

Van Neerven was a recipient of a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, an award of A$160,000 given to mid-career creatives and thought leaders.^[22]

• 2013: Queensland Literary Awards — The David Unaipon Award for Unpublished Indigenous Writers for Heat and Light
• 2015: Dobbie Literary Award for Heat and Light
• 2015: Stella Prize shortlist for Heat and Light^[7]
• 2015: The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelist for Heat and Light^[23]
• 2016: NSW Premier's Literary Award — Indigenous Writers Prize for Heat and Light^[6]
• 2016: Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing for Heat and Light^[24]
• 2017: The poem "Mango" from van Neerven's collection Comfort Food (2016) was chosen as a sample text in the English Paper 1 examination of the New South Wales Higher School Certificate^[25]
• 2019: Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Awards, winner^[26]
• 2020: University of Queensland Press' inaugural Quentin Bryce Award for Throat^[27]
• 2020: Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Poetry: shortlisted for Throat^[28]
• 2021: Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry: shortlisted for Throat^[29]
• 2021: NSW Premier's Literary Awards Book of the Year; Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry; and the Multicultural NSW Award, for Throat^[30][2]
• 2021: ALS Gold Medal: shortlisted for Throat^[31]
• 2022: Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature John Bray Poetry Award: shortlisted for Throat^[32]
• 2024: Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and the Prize for Nonfiction, winner for Personal Score^[33]
• 2024: Queensland Literary Awards — Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance and the Nonfiction Book Award, shortlisted for Personal Score^[34]

Selected works

Fiction

• —— (2014). Heat and Light. University of Queensland Press.

Short stories

• "Skin", Meanjin Literary Journal^[35]
• "Wetskins", The Lifted Brow^[36]
• "S&J", McSweeney's^[37]

Poetry

Collections

• —— (2016). Comfort Food. University of Queensland Press.
• —— (2020). Throat. University of Queensland Press.^[10]

Poems

• "Invisible Spears", Overland Issue 220^[38]

Nonfiction

• —— (2023). Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity.

As editor

• Writing Black: New Indigenous Writing from Australia, edited by Ellen van Neerven, State Library of Queensland (2014)
• Joiner Bay and Other Stories, edited by Ellen van Neerven, Margaret River Press (2017)
• Homeland Calling: Words from a new generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voices, edited by Ellen van Neerven, Desert Pea Media via Hardie Grant Publishing (2020)^[39]

Critical studies and reviews

• Birch, Tony (27 August 2014). "Heat and Light, [by] Ellen Fan Neerven". Readings.
• Patrić, Alec (September 2014). "[Untitled review of Heat and light]". Australian Book Review. 364: 48.