Dr Ambelin Kwaymullina is a First Nations creative practitioner and academic who comes from the Palyku people. She is a writer, poet, illustrator, educator and scholar, whose creative works have won the Victorian Premiers Literary Award and the Aurealis Award. Ambelin tells stories across a range of forms, including speculative fiction novels, picture books, articles, essays, verse and short fiction. A full list of her publications is available here. Much of her work concerns Indigenous Futurisms, which she has described as:
“… stories
grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing
being and doing
and in our deep knowledge
of injustice
Like all our stories
our futurist narratives
are informed by the tales of our Ancestors
which tell of realities
that are holistic
non-linear
Pluralist
and in which everything lives
and is related to each other”
(Ambelin Kwaymullina, ‘Indigenist Futurisms’, publication forthcoming in Carlson et al, The Routledge Handbook of Australian Indigenous Peoples and Futures)
As an educator Ambelin has worked to create teaching and research spaces that are respectful of Indigenous peoples and knowledges, including through leading a project to Indigenise law curriculum. Her work in this field has been recognised through multiple awards, including the Neville Bonner Award for Indigenous Education. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a member of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, and a member of the First Nations Australia Writer’s Network.