Please join us for a reading and conversation between the Indigenous H.C. Coombs fellowEllen van Neerven and Associate Professor Elfie Shiosaki reading their poetry and discussing their approaches to poetics.

A light welcome lunch will be provided on arrival at 12.30pm. 

To join in online please use this Zoom link: https://anu.zoom.us/j/84094411550?pwd=bXhUR1JMVVEyMmJ2MDRDT0o1aXV5Zz09

About the authors

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.

Elfie Shiosaki is a Noongar and Yawuru writer, as well as an Associate Professor at the College of Arts and Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Her research and teaching explore Indigenous desires for human rights and self-determination. She was Westerly magazine’s inaugural Editor for Indigenous Writing (2017–2021), and her debut poetry collection Homecoming (Magabala Books, 2021) was winner of the Western Australian Premier’s Prize for an emerging writer, as well as being shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, among other prizes.

This event is presented to you by the ANU Centre for Australian Literary Cultures with the support of the Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group of the College of Arts & Social Sciences.