Krissy Kneen Krissy Kneen i(A73241 works by) (a.k.a. Kris Kneen)
Born: Established: 1968 ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Krissy Kneen has an MA in Creative Writing from the Queensland University of Technology. Her short dramas and documentaries have been screened on SBS television and she has worked at Brisbane's Avid Reader Bookshop. In 2007 Kneen co-founded the independent publisher Eatbooks.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Fat Girl Dancing Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2023 25676920 2023 single work autobiography

'Stella Prize-shortlisted author Kris Kneen examines their body through the lens of art and burlesque in this gorgeous, intimate story of fatness, beauty and self-knowledge.

'How does a person come to know that they are different from the children around them? To measure themselves against a set normal and find themselves lacking?

'When did I know that I was plump, and then fat?

'Fat child, self-denying adolescent, hungry young woman; a body now burgeoning uncontrolled into middle age. Kris Kneen has borne the usual indignities—the confrontations with clothes that won't fasten, with mirrors that defame, with strangers whose gaze judges and dismisses. This is the story of how Kris learned to look unblinkingly at their recalcitrant body, and ultimately found the courage to carry it to freedom.

'Fat Girl Dancing is a frank, beautiful and triumphant ode to self-respect from one of Australia's most original and acclaimed writers.' (Publication summary)

2024 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
2024 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Queensland Premier's Award for a Work of State Significance
2024 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
y separately published work icon Dugongesque : An Essay by Krissy Kneen 2021 23500264 2021 single work podcast 'Each year, the judges of the Calibre Essay Prize face the difficult task of selecting a winner from an impressive shortlist. Last year’s winner was Theodore Ell for ‘Facades of Lebanon’, an intimate chronicle of the 2020 port explosion in Beirut. In today’s episode, ABR turns to another impressive essay, ‘Dugongesque’, which was shortlisted for last year’s Calibre Essay Prize and appears in our upcoming December issue. Written by the award-winning Queensland author Krissy Kneen, ‘Dugongesque’ is a poignant exploration of identity, bodies, and death as Kneen embarks on a diving course bought for her by her partner. Listen to Kneen read her essay in full.' (Introduction)
 
2020 shortlisted The Calibre Prize
y separately published work icon The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen : Travels with My Grandmother's Ashes Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2021 20977686 2021 single work autobiography

'In her 2010 memoir, Affection, Krissy Kneen introduced readers to her unique family and the towering matriarchal figure of her grandmother. Stern, domineering, fiercely loving, Lotty Kneen—born Dragitsa—was always tight-lipped about her early life and family history. She rebuffed Krissy's curiosity and forbade her from taking the trip back to the old country that might have satisfied it.

'When her grandmother died recently, Krissy finally felt at liberty to explore the questions that had nagged at her for so long. In The Three Burials of Lotty Kneen Krissy sets out with a box containing her grandmother's ashes, intending to trace the old woman's early life in Slovenia and Egypt, and perhaps locate some remnants of family. Along the way she uncovers the extraordinary story of the colony of Slovene women who became the nannies of choice for the wealthy Italians of pre-war Alexandria-and identifies as best she can the places where Lotty's restless, demanding spirit will be at peace.' (Publication summary)

2022 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Non-Fiction Book Award
2022 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
2022 shortlisted ASAL Awards The Australian Historical Association Awards Magarey Medal for Biography
2022 highly commended New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Multicultural NSW Award
Last amended 19 Jan 2023 12:17:02
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