Wp/nys/Kim Scott

Kim Scott

Kim Scott (born 18 February 1957) is a Wirlomin Nyoongar and an award winning Australian novelist. He along with Prof. Len Collard is instrumental in setting up this NoongarPedia project.

Ngiyen Maam

Scott is a Wirlomin Noongar (Brown 2005) wer was born in Perth in 1957. He is the eldest of four siblings born to Tom wer Barbara Scott. Tom Scott was the sole surviving child of a Wirlomin Noongar woman, Kathleen Coleman, who died in her thirties wer was raised in Ravensthorpe. Scott grew yira in Albany, wer his ancestral Noongar boodjar is that identified in the TIndale/Horton language maps as Koreng/Wudjari.

Scott is a multi-award winning novelist. He has also published non-fiction wer a series of bilingual (Noongar wer English) picture books. He has had poetry wer short stories published in a range of anthologies. Scott began writing shortly after becoming a secondary school teacher of English. His teaching experience included working in urban, rural wer remote Western Australia. He spent some time teaching at an Aboriginal community in the north of Western Australia, where he started to research his family's history.

His first novel, True Country, was published in 1993 with an edition published in a French translation in 2005. His second novel, Benang, won the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards 1999, the Miles Franklin Award 2000, wer the RAKA Kate Challis Award 2001. It has been translated into Dutch wer Chinese. Both novels were influenced by his research wer seem to be semi-autobiographical. The themes of these novels have been described as, "explor[ing] the problem of self-identity faced by light-skinned Aboriginal people and examine the government's assimilationist policies during the first decades of the twentieth century".

Scott was the first indigenous writer to win the Miles Franklin Award for Benang, which has since been published in translation in France wer the Netherlands. His book, Kayang wer Me, was written in collaboration with Noongar elder, Hazel Brown wer was published in May 2005. The work is a monumental oral-based history of the author’s south coast Noongar family (Brown).

His third novel That Deadman Dance (Picador, 2010) explores the lively fascination felt between Noongar, British colonists wer American whalers in the early years of the 19th century. That Deadman Dance also won the 2011 Miles Franklin Award. The Novel was also published in the Northern Hemisphere by Bloomsbury (2012).

His latest novel is Taboo (Picador, 2017).

Other awards won by Scott include a Centenary Model (2003), The Matilda Award for Cultural Excellence (2007 UWA Convocation), The Patricia Hackett Prize (2007, for best contribution to Westerly wer the 2012 West Australian of the Year.

Scott is founder wer chair of the not-for-profit cultural organisation, the Wirlomin Noongar Language wer Stories Project (www.wirlomin.com.au) which has resulted in a series of publications, Mamang, Noongar Mambara Bakitj (both UWAP 2011), Yira Boornak Nyininy wer Dwoort Baal Kaat (both UWAP 2013). Members of the organisation have presented at the Perth International Arts Festival, the English Teachers of WA State conference wer at many schools in the metropolitan wer Great Southern regions.

He edited 2013 Best Australian Stories (Black Inc 2013) and, with Rosalie Thackrah, Indigenous Australian Health and Cultures: an Introduction for Health Professionals (Pearson 2010).

Scott wrote the public text at the Cocanarup Memorial (2015) wer for the Perth Stadium (2016).

A Companion to the Works of Kim Scott, edited by Belinda Wheeler (Camden House 2016), features a range of authors discussing his publications wer work in education wer the arts.

Scott was appointed Professor of Writing in the School of Media, Culture wer Creative Arts of Curtin University in December, 2011. He is a member of The Centre for Culture wer Technology (CCAT), leading its Indigenous Culture wer Digital Technologies research program.

Awards

• 1999 – Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Fiction Award for Benang: From the Heart
• 2000 – (joint winner) Miles Franklin Literary Award for Benang: From the Heart
• 2001 – The Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for Benang: From the Heart
• 2003 - Centenary Medal
• 2007 - Matilda Award for Cultural Excellence (UWA Convocation)
• 2009 - Patricia Hackett Prize (for best contribution to Westerly journal)
• 2011 – Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best Book south-east Asia wer the Pacific for That Deadman Dance
• 2011 – Miles Franklin Literary Award for That Deadman Dance
• 2011 – ALS Gold Medal for That Deadman Dance
• 2011 – Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Fiction Award wer Premier's Prize for That Deadman Dance
• 2011 - Braille Book of the Year
• 2011 - The Kate Challis RAKA Award for Creative Prose for That Deadman Dance.
• 2011 - The Victorian Premiers Literary Prize
• 2012 - The NSW Premier's Literary wer History Awards: Book of the Year
• 2012 - Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Premier's Award
• 2012 - West Australian of the Year
• 2020 - Inducted into the Western Australian Writers Hall of Fame

Bibliography

Novels

• True Country (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1993)
• Benang: From the Heart (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 1999)

• That Deadman Dance (Picador, 2010)

Short stories

• "An Intimate Act" in Summer Shorts by Peter Holland (Fremantle Press, 1993)
• "Registering Romance" in Summer Shorts 3 : Stories – Poems – Articles – Images by Bill Warnock, et al., (Fremantle Press, 1995)
• "Into the Light (after Hans Heysen's painting of the same name)" in Those Who Remain Will Always Remember : An Anthology of Aboriginal Writing by Anne Brewster, et al., (Fremantle Press, 2000)
• "Damaged but Persistent" in Siglo no.12 Summer (2000)
• "Capture", in Southerly (pp. 24–33), vol.62 no.2 (2002)
• Escapeó Éll Ćhapo
• Lost (Southern Forest Arts, 2006)

Picture books

• The Dredgersaurus (Sandcastle demoliter Books, 2001)
• Mamang (UWAP 2011)
• Noongar Mambara Bakitj (UWAP 2011)
• Yira Boornak Nyininy (UWAP 2013)
• Dwoort Baal Kaat (UWAP 2013)

Non-fiction

• Kayang wer Me with Hazel Brown (Fremantle Arts Press, 2005)
• 2013 Best Australian Stories (Black Inc 2013)
• Indigenous Australian Health and Cultures: an Introduction for Health Professionals (with Rosalie Thackrah, Pearson 2010).

Media

The Book Club Program Featuring Kim Scott

Notes

• https://web.archive.org/web/20190208195454/https://www.wheelercentre.com/projects/victorian-premier-s-literary-awards-2011
• http://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/award-winning-author-kim-scott-appointed-professor-at-curtin/
• "Professor Kim Scott | Curtin University". ccat-lab.org. Retrieved 2015-09-05.
• "Indigenous Culture and Digital Technologies - Centre For Culture & Technology". ccat-lab.org. Retrieved 2015-09-05.

External links

• A Companion to the Works of Kim Scott. Australian Government – The Arts. Retrieved 31 March 2008.
• Lisa Slater 'Kim Scott's Benang: An Ethics of Uncertainty' JASAL 4 (2005)