Writer and editor Ellen van Neerven is a descendant of the Mununjali (Yugambeh) people from Beaudesert; their father was Dutch. Ellen grew up in Brisbane, where they attended Albany Creek High School; in 2010, Van Neerven graduated with a degree in Fine Arts in Creative Writing Production. In 2011, Ellen was granted a mentorship with black & write! Indigenous Writing and Editing Project as an editing mentor, after which they were appointed as a black & write! Indigenous editor.
It was in their twenties that Van Neerven began to take writing seriously, although their love of writing began when they were six, encouraged by their grade one teacher. In 2013, Ellen won the David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer in the Queensland Literary Awards for their short-story collection Heat and Light. In addition to the Unaipon Award, the collection has won the Dobbie Award and the Indigenous Writer's Prize (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), and was shortlisted for the Stella Prize, the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), the Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance, the Steel Rudd Award (Queensland Literary Awards), and the Prize for Indigenous Writing (Victorian Premier's Literary Awards).
Their second book, the poetry collection Comfort Food, was published in 2016, when it was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry (NSW Premier's Literary Awards). Ellen released their third book, Throat, in 2020, which was published by UQP.