image of person or book cover 374389960840007737.jpg
This image has been sourced from UQP
Gayle Kennedy Gayle Kennedy i(A97516 works by)
Born: Established: Ivanhoe, Far West NSW, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Female
Heritage: Aboriginal ; Aboriginal Wongaiibon
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

BiographyHistory

Gayle Kennedy is a member of the Nyaampa-speaking nation in the south west of New South Wales. As a child, she suffered from polio, and spent long periods (in the first instance, three years) in rehab hospitals and children's homes. Her development of post-polio syndrome in her late 40s helped spur her interest in her writing career.

Her stories have been published in newspapers and magazines and broadcast on radio. From 1995-1998 she was the Indigenous issues writer and researcher for Streetwize Comics.

Her characters in Me, Antman, and Fleabag were created for her award-winning short story entry in the New South Wales Writers' Centre's Inner City Life competition in 2005. Her manuscript based on these characters won the the David Unaipon Award in 2006, for which she'd been shortlised the year before with the poetry collection Koori Girl Goes Shoppin'.

Kennedy has been a panel participant at the 2006 Indigenous Writers Festival and the 2007 Contemporary Australian Fiction Festival, and a member of the NSW Writers' Centre Management Committee (2007-2009).

Kennedy has written children's books and graphic novels for the Yarning Strong series, which attracted a Deadly Award nomination. She has also been shortlisted and commended for other awards, including the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award. She was one of the poets who worked with the Red Room Company on an accompaniment to the Carved Trees exhibition at NSW State Library.

In addition to her writing, Kennedy is a disability advocate, and, in particular, an advocate for access to disability services for Aboriginal people.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Me, Antman and Fleabag 2006 St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2007 Z1307235 2006 selected work short story humour

'A collection of short stories that encapsulates the story of the Aboriginal narrator, her partner Antman, their dog Fleabag and their life in travelling in rural Australia.'  (Source: Narragunnawali resource)

2006 winner Queensland Literary Awards Unpublished Indigenous Writer : David Unaipon Award
2011 Commended Australian Centre Literary Awards The Kate Challis RAKA Award
2008 nominated Deadly Sounds Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Music, Sport, Entertainment and Community Awards Outstanding Achievement in Literature
2008 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Indigenous Writing
Last amended 28 Sep 2017 14:14:11
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X