Jared Thomas

Jared Thomas (born 1976) is an Australian author of children's fiction, playwright and museum curator. Several of his books have been shortlisted for awards, and he has been awarded three writing fellowships.

Jared Thomas
Born1976 (age 46–47)
Port Augusta, Australia
OccupationWriter
NationalityAustralian
GenreYoung adult fiction, children's fiction, plays, poetry

In May 2018 he began a 12-month secondment as William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture at the South Australian Museum, and in 2019 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to "investigate colonised people's interpretative strategies in permanent gallery displays" in museums abroad.

Early life and education

Thomas was born in Port Augusta in 1976, of Aboriginal, Scottish, and Irish heritage. He is a Nukunu man, born on Nukunu land in the Southern Flinders Ranges and raised within the Nukunu culture.[1]

He was inspired by seeing the play Funerals and Circuses by Arrernte playwright Roger Bennett when on a school excursion to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 1992 and decided to study the humanities and writing. After excelling in his undergraduate BA degree at the University of Adelaide, he worked for the Fringe for a while before gaining a traineeship to work as an editor of a publication at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, where he developed a love of visual arts.[1]

Career

Working at Adelaide University as an academic advisor, he enrolled for a masters degree in creative writing and wrote plays. His work Love, Land and Money was later produced for the 2002 Adelaide Fringe Festival. After having poems and short stories published in several anthologies, he started focusing on novels, and his first novel, Sweet Guy (2005) was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards in 2006[1][2] and the Festival Awards for Literature.[3]

As lecturer of Communication and Literature at the University of South Australia's David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research, Thomas enrolled for his PhD in Creative Writing,[1] which he completed in 2011.[4]

Thomas was a member of the working party involved in the creation of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) in 2012.[5] In September 2015, in a collaboration with Poets House in New York City, Thomas participated in a recording of six FNAWN members reading their work at a special event, which was recorded. The other readers were Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Melissa Lucashenko, Bruce Pascoe, and Ellen van Neerven.[6]

He has coordinated Nukunu People's Council cultural heritage, language, and arts projects.[3] He was Arts Development Officer, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts at Arts SA in 2018,[7] and is an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.[8]

In May 2018 Thomas began a 12-month secondment as William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture at the South Australian Museum.[7] In this role he curated the Yurtu Ardla exhibition from March to June 2019.[9]

In September 2019 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to travel to New Zealand, the US, Canada and Norway, "to investigate colonised people's interpretative strategies in permanent gallery displays".[10][11][12]

In 2020, Thomas was employed as Indigenous consultant on two ABC TV series, Stateless[13] and Operation Buffalo.[14]

Works

Novels
  • Thomas, J. (2005). Sweet Guy. IAD Press. ISBN 978-1-86465-050-1.
  • —— (2011). Dallas Davis: The Scientist and the City Kids. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-557258-2.
  • —— (2013). Calypso Summer. Magabala Books. ISBN 978-1-922142-12-2.
  • —— (2016). Songs that Sound like Blood. Magabala Books. ISBN 978-0-19-557258-2.
  • ——; Patty Mills (2018). Game Day! Championship Collection. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-76052-380-0. (Contents: 1. Game Day – Patty Hits the Court; 2. Game Day – Patty and the Shadows; 3. Game Day – Patty Takes Charge)
  • —— (2022). My Spare Heart. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-76063-183-3.

Plays
  • Love, Land and Money (2002)
  • Flash Red Ford (1999) - toured Uganda and Kenya, performed by a Ugandan company.[3]

Non-fiction
  • "Daredevil Days", chapter in Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. Black Inc. 2018. ISBN 9781863959810

Awards
  • Sweet Guy — 2002, shortlisted, Festival Awards for Literature (SA): Award for an Unpublished Manuscript; 2006, shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards: Prize for Indigenous Writing
  • Calypso Summer — 2013 winner, black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships; 2014 — shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing;[15] winner, International White Raven award[16] in 2015,[17] selected by the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, "given to books that deserve worldwide attention because of their universal themes and/or their exceptional and often innovative artistic and literary style and design".[18]
  • Patty Hits the Court: Game Day! — 2018, shortlisted, Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards: Best Book for Language Development, Indigenous Children
  • "Uncle Xbox (Book 2) Getting Dusty" — 2023 winner, Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult Fiction, Western Australian Premier's Book Awards[19]
  • My Spare Heart — 2023 shortlisted, Young Adult Book Award, Queensland Literary Awards[20]

References
  1. "Jared Thomas". Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  2. "The Prize for Indigenous Writing: Shortlist 2006". State Library of Victoria. Archived from the original on 29 March 2011. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  3. "Jared Thomas". AustLit. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  4. "Dr Jared Thomas". South Australian Museum. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  5. Reed-Gilbert, Kerry (13 July 2018). "A short history of the First Nations Australia Writers Network". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  6. "First Nations Australia Writers' Network Reading". Poets House. 30 August 2018. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
  7. "Arts SA – Aboriginal & TSI Arts Development (4 May 2019)". Facebook. Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  8. "Great Book Swap Launch in South Australia". Indigenous Literacy Foundation. 20 March 2019.
  9. Thomas, Jared (17 April 2019). "A celebration of Nukunu and Adnyamathanha wood carving/A shared vision". Adelaide Review (#470). Retrieved 25 April 2019.
  10. "2019 Churchill Fellowship Award Recipients". Churchill Trust. Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  11. "Australia's 2019 Churchill Fellowship Award recipients announced" (PDF). Churchill Trust (Press release). 23 September 2019. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 March 2020. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  12. Schultz, Harrison (13 October 2019). "Churchill Fellowship for local Southern Vales surfer Dr Jared Thomas". The Times on the Coast. Retrieved 22 November 2019.
  13. Jared Thomas at IMDb
  14. Knox, David. "Operation Buffalo". TV Tonight. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  15. "Lucashenko wins 2014 Vic Prem's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing". Books+Publishing. 4 September 2014. Retrieved 9 December 2020.
  16. Austlit. "Calypso Summer". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  17. "White Ravens Database". White Ravens Database. Internationale Jugendbibliothek. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  18. Austlit. "White Ravens". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  19. "Winners of 2023 WA Premier's Book Awards announced". The National Tribune. 23 June 2023. Retrieved 24 June 2023.
  20. "Queensland Literary Awards 2023 shortlists". Books+Publishing. 2 August 2023. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
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