Leni Shilton

Shilton grew up in Papua New Guinea and Melbourne, Australia. She moved to Alice Springs in 1985 to the region to work as a remote-area nurse and health educator but has since taught creative writing at the Alice Springs Correctional Centre and Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education.^[2][3] She has also worked at NPY Women's Council as an education researcher.^[4]

Shilton's poetry has been included in a number of anthologies, journals and broadcast radio^[3] and in 2018, she published her first book Walking with camels: the story of Bertha Strehlow through University of Western Australia Publishing, developed from her creative writing PhD, Giving silence its voice: uncovering Bertha Strehlow's voice through poetry.^[5] It was a finalist in the Northern Territory History Book Awards.

Shilton's second book, Malcolm : a story in verse, was published in 2019 and it is set in Melbourne's underbelly and centres around Malcolm, a 17 year old boy, with a difficult and violent upbringing.^[6]

Shilton is also a founding member of Ptilotus Press, a community publisher in Alice Springs, which is managed by a collective of local writers.^[1]

• Northern Territory Literary Award for poetry, 2010 and 2016^[7]
• Northern Territory Literary Award, essay category, 2012.^[7]
• 2015, shortlisted, University of Canberra Poetry Prize^[8]