Evelyn Araluen is an Australian poet and literary editor. ^[1] She won the 2022 Stella Prize with her first book, Dropbear.

Early life

Araluen is an Aboriginal Australian of the Bundjalung people, born on Dharug land. ^[2]

Career

Araluen's poetry has been published in The Best Australian Poems 2016, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review and Southerly and other literary journals. She contributed a chapter, "Finding Ways Home", to Anita Heiss' Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. ^[3]

In 2019 she and Jonathan Dunk were appointed co-editors of Overland, an established Australian literary journal ^[4] and in November that year were joint recipients of a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. ^[5] She also won the inaugural Professional Development Award at the 2021 Melbourne Prize. ^[6]

Her first book, Dropbear was published by the University of Queensland Press in March 2021. ^[7]

Recognition and awards

After being runner-up in the 2016 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers for her poem, "Learning Bundjalung on Tharawal", ^[8] she won the following year for her short story, "Muyum: a transgression". ^[9] In 2017 she also won first and third prizes in the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets for "Guarded by birds" and "Dropbear poetics". ^[10]

In 2018 Araluen received one of the Wheeler Centre's inaugural Next Chapter grants, providing 12 months' mentoring by Tony Birch and a three-day writing retreat at Varuna, The Writers' House. ^{[11] [12]}

Dropbear won the 2022 Stella Prize ^{[13] [14]} and was highly commended in the 2021 Anne Elder Award. ^[15] It was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award, ^[16] the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing ^[17] and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. ^[18]

References