Evelyn Araluen facts for kids

Evelyn Araluen is a talented writer from Australia. She writes poems and helps edit books and magazines. In 2022, she won a big award called the Stella Prize for her first book, Dropbear.

Early Life

Evelyn Araluen is an Aboriginal Australian. She is part of the Bundjalung people. She was born on land that belongs to the Dharug people.

Her Career

Evelyn Araluen's poems have been featured in many important Australian magazines. These include The Best Australian Poems 2016, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review, and Southerly. She also wrote a chapter called "Finding Ways Home" for a book titled Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, edited by Anita Heiss.

In 2019, Evelyn became a co-editor for Overland, a well-known Australian literary magazine. She shared this role with Jonathan Dunk. They also received a special grant that year to help them travel for their writing. In 2021, she won the first-ever Professional Development Award at the Melbourne Prize.

Her first book, Dropbear, was released in March 2021 by the University of Queensland Press.

Awards and Recognition

Evelyn Araluen has received many honors for her writing. In 2016, her poem "Learning Bundjalung on Tharawal" was a runner-up for the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers. The very next year, she won that same prize for her short story, "Muyum: a transgression". Also in 2017, she won first and third place in the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets for her poems "Guarded by birds" and "Dropbear poetics".

In 2018, Evelyn received a special grant from the Wheeler Centre. This grant gave her 12 months of guidance from the famous writer Tony Birch. It also included a three-day writing retreat at Varuna, The Writers' House.

Her book Dropbear won the prestigious 2022 Stella Prize. It was also highly praised for the 2021 Anne Elder Award. The book was considered for several other awards too. These included the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award, the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing, and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry.