Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali (Yugambeh language group) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, and play football on unceded Turrbal and Yuggera land. Van Neerven’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. van Neerven’s 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), van Neerven’s latest poetry collection, and recipient of the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award, 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 are co-editing an upcoming collection of Blak + Black Visionary and Speculative fiction Unlimited Futures with Sudanese multilingual writer Rafeif Ismail.
Ellen co-hosts the podcast Extraordinary Voices for Extraordinary Times with Ellen Van Neerven. They alternate monthly hosting duties in this podcast that mixes dialogue with poetry readings.