Evelyn Araluen

After being runner-up in the 2016 Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers for her poem, "Learning Bundjalung on Tharawal",^[6] she won the following year for her short story, "Muyum: a transgression".^[7] 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".^[8]

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.^[9][10] In November of 2019 she and Jonathan Dunk were joint recipients of a Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund grant.^[11] Araluen also won the inaugural Professional Development Award of the 2021 Melbourne Prize.^[12]

Dropbear won the 2022 Stella Prize^[13][14] and was highly commended in the 2021 Anne Elder Award.^[15] It was shortlisted for the 2021 Judith Wright Calanthe Award,^[16] the 2022 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing,^[17] and the 2022 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry.^[18]

Araluen's 2025 collection, The Rot, won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing and the Victorian Prize for Literature in 2026.^[19] It was also shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry that year.^[20]

• Araluen, Evelyn (2021). Dropbear. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-7022-6318-7.
• Araluen, Evelyn (2025). The Rot. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 978-0-7022-6896-0.