Leni Shilton is a poet, teacher and researcher based in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia.[1]
Biography
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]
Awards and honours
- 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]
References
