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

Early life

Araluen is an

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, excluding the ethnically distinct people of the Torres Strait Islands. Humans first migrated to Australia 50,000 to 65,000 year ...

of the

Bundjalung people The Bundjalung people, also spelled Bunjalung, Badjalang and Bandjalang, are Aboriginal Australians who are the original custodians of a region from around Grafton, New South Wales, Grafton in northern coastal New South Wales to Beaudesert, Que ...

, born on

Dharug The Dharug or Darug people, are a nation of Aboriginal Australian clans, who share ties of kinship, country and culture. In pre-colonial times, they lived as hunters in the region of current day Sydney. The Darug speak one of two dialects o ...

land.

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''. In 2019 she and Jonathan Dunk were appointed co-editors of ''Overland'', an established Australian literary journal and in November that year were joint recipients of a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant. She also won the inaugural Professional Development Award at the 2021 Melbourne Prize. Her first book, '' Dropbear'' was published by the

University of Queensland Press University of Queensland Press (UQP) is an Australian publishing house based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in 1948 as a traditional university press, UQP now publishes books for general readers across fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children's ...

in March 2021.

Recognition and awards

After being runner-up in the 2016 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers for her poem, "Learning Bundjalung on Tharawal", she won the following year for her short story, "Muyum: a transgression". 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". 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. ''Dropbear'' won the 2022 Stella Prize and was highly commended in the 2021 Anne Elder Award. It was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award, the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Araluen, Evelyn Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian poets 21st-century Australian women writers Australian editors Australian women editors Bundjalung people Indigenous Australian poets Overland (magazine) people