Jared Thomas (born 1976) is an Australian author of

children's fiction Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader. Children's ...

, playwright and

museum curator A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...

. Several of his books have been shortlisted for awards, and he has been awarded three writing fellowships. In May 2018 he began a 12-month secondment as William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture at the

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultu ...

, and in 2019 he was awarded a

Churchill Fellowship Winston Churchill Memorial Trusts (WCMT) are three independent but related living memorials to Sir Winston Churchill, based in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. They exist for the purpose of administering Churchill Fellowships, a ...

to "investigate colonised people's interpretative strategies in permanent gallery displays" in museums abroad.

Early life and education

Thomas was born in

Port Augusta Port Augusta is a small city in South Australia. Formerly a port, seaport, it is now a road traffic and Junction (rail), railway junction city mainly located on the east coast of the Spencer Gulf immediately south of the gulf's head and about ...

in 1976, of Aboriginal, Scottish, and Irish heritage. He is a

Nukunu Nukunu are an Aboriginal Australian people of South Australia, living around the Spencer Gulf area. In the years after British colonisation of South Australia, the area was developed to contain the cities of Port Pirie and Port Augusta. Name Bot ...

man, born on Nukunu land in the

Southern Flinders Ranges Southern Flinders Ranges is a South Australian wine region, located east of Spencer Gulf. It is located to the east and north-east of Port Pirie. Though vines have been planted in the area since the 1890s, the Southern Flinders Ranges is a rel ...

and raised within the Nukunu culture. He was inspired by seeing the play ''Funerals and Circuses'' by

Arrernte Arrernte (also spelt Aranda, etc.) is a descriptor related to a group of Aboriginal Australian peoples from Central Australia. It may refer to: * Arrernte (area), land controlled by the Arrernte Council (?) * Arrernte people, Aboriginal Australi ...

playwright Roger Bennett when on a school excursion to the

Adelaide Fringe Festival The Adelaide Fringe, formerly Adelaide Fringe Festival, is the world's second-largest annual arts festival (after the Edinburgh Festival Fringe), held in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Between mid-February and mid-March each year, ...

in 1992 and decided to study the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

and writing. After excelling in his undergraduate BA degree at the

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

, he worked for the Fringe for a while before gaining a traineeship to work as an editor of a publication at the

Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute The Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute, usually referred to as Tandanya, is an art museum located on Grenfell Street in Adelaide, South Australia. It specialises in promoting Indigenous Australian art, including visual art, music an ...

, where he developed a love of visual arts.

Career

Working at Adelaide University as an academic advisor, he enrolled for a masters degree in creative writing and wrote plays. His work ''Love, Land and Money'' was later produced for the 2002 Adelaide Fringe Festival. After having poems and short stories published in several anthologies, he started focusing on novels, and his first novel, ''Sweet Guy'' (2005) was shortlisted in the

Victorian Premier's Literary Awards The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary p ...

in 2006 and the Festival Awards for Literature. As lecturer of Communication and Literature at the

University of South Australia The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...

's David Unaipon College of Indigenous Education and Research, Thomas enrolled for his PhD in Creative Writing, which he completed in 2011. Thomas was a member of the working party involved in the creation of the

First Nations Australia Writers Network The First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) is the peak advocacy body for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander writers, storytellers and poets in Australia. History The seeds for the organisation were sown at the Guwanyi Indigenous ...

(FNAWN) in 2012. In September 2015, in a collaboration with

Poets House Poets House is a national literary center and poetry library based in New York City. It contains more than 70,000 volumes of poetry, and is free and open to the public. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, they temporarily suspended operations in Nov ...

in New York City, Thomas participated in a recording of six FNAWN members reading their work at a special event, which was recorded. The other readers were Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler,

Melissa Lucashenko Melissa Lucashenko is an Indigenous Australian writer of adult literary fiction and literary non-fiction, who has also written novels for teenagers. In 2013 at The Walkley Awards, she won the "Feature Writing Long (over 4000 words) Award" for ...

Bruce Pascoe Bruce Pascoe (born 1947) is an Aboriginal Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Since August 2 ...

, and

Ellen van Neerven Ellen van Neerven (born 1990) is an Aboriginal Australian author, educator and editor. They are queer and non-binary. Their first work of fiction, ''Heat and Light'' (2013), won several awards, and in 2019 Van Neerven won the Queensland Premier ...

. He has coordinated Nukunu People's Council cultural heritage, language, and arts projects. He was Arts Development Officer, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts at

Arts SA Arts South Australia (previously Arts SA) was responsible for managing the South Australian Government's funding for the arts and cultural heritage from about 1996 until late 2018, when it was progressively dismantled, a process complete by early ...

in 2018, and is an ambassador for the

Indigenous Literacy Foundation The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) is an Australian not-for-profit founded in 2011 that works to address the educational disadvantages faced by Indigenous Australian children and young people by providing access to books and literacy progr ...

. In May 2018 Thomas began a 12-month secondment as William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture at the

. In this role he curated the ''Yurtu Ardla'' exhibition from March to June 2019. In September 2019 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to travel to New Zealand, the US, Canada and Norway, "to investigate colonised people's interpretative strategies in permanent gallery displays". In 2020, Thomas was employed as Indigenous consultant on two ABC TV series, '' Stateless'' and ''

Operation Buffalo Operation Buffalo may refer to: * Operation Buffalo, 1944 military operation, part of the Battle of Anzio in WW2 * Operation Buffalo (1956), four open-air nuclear tests at Maralinga, South Australia * Operation Buffalo (1967), a Vietnam War opera ...

''.

Works

Novels

* * * * * (Contents: 1. ''Game Day – Patty Hits the Court''; 2. ''Game Day – Patty and the Shadows''; 3. ''Game Day – Patty Takes Charge'')

Plays

*''Love, Land and Money'' (2002) *''Flash Red Ford'' (1999) - toured

Uganda }), is a landlocked country in East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...

and

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

, performed by a Ugandan company.

Non-fiction

*"Daredevil Days", chapter in ''

Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia ''Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia'' is a 2018 biographical anthology compiled and edited by Anita Heiss and published by Black Inc. It includes 52 short written pieces by Aboriginal Australians from many walks of life and discusses issues li ...

''.

Black Inc Schwartz Publishing is an Australian publishing house, digital media and news media organisation based in Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria established by Australian property developer Morry Schwartz in the 1980s. Since the late 1990s many of its p ...

. 2018. ISBN 9781863959810

Awards

*''Sweet Guy'' — 2002, shortlisted, Festival Awards for Literature (SA): Award for an Unpublished Manuscript; 2006, shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards: Prize for Indigenous Writing *''Calypso Summer'' — 2013 winner, black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships; 2014 — shortlisted,

Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing The Victorian Premier's Prize for Indigenous Writing is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of cont ...

; winner, International

White Raven award White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

in 2015, selected by the

International Youth Library The International Youth Library (IYL) (, IJB) in Munich is a library that specializes in the collection of children and youth literature from around the world in order to make them available to the public, focusing on the international community. ...

in Munich, Germany, "given to books that deserve worldwide attention because of their universal themes and/or their exceptional and often innovative artistic and literary style and design". *''Patty Hits the Court: Game Day!'' — 2018, shortlisted, Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards: Best Book for Language Development, Indigenous Children

References

External links

Staff profile, SA Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Jared 21st-century Australian novelists 1976 births Australian people of Scottish descent Australian people of Irish descent Indigenous Australian writers Writers from South Australia Living people