Rebecca Giggs is a Perth-based Australian nonfiction writer, known for ''Fathoms: The World in the Whale''.

Career

Giggs studied at the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

. She holds an LLB, BA Arts (Hons) and a PhD in ecological literary studies conferred in 2014. Giggs is an honorary fellow at the

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. She was awarded the 2017 Mick Dark flagship fellowship by Varuna for "The Whale in the Room", the working title for ''Fathoms''. She won support from Writers Victoria through the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund to visit the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

, Germany as a writing fellow in 2018. As an essayist, Giggs has contributed to ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'' on science subjects from "Why We're Afraid of Bats" to "Human Drugs Are Polluting the Water—And Animals Are Swimming in It". Her first book, ''Fathoms: The World in the Whale'', was published in 2020 worldwide by

Scribe A scribe is a person who serves as a professional copyist, especially one who made copies of manuscripts before the invention of automatic printing. The profession of the scribe, previously widespread across cultures, lost most of its promi ...

and by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

in the USA.

Awards and recognition

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

'' named ''Fathoms'' in their "10 Top Summer Reads in Nonfiction" and described the book as "a thoughtful, ambitiously crafted appeal for the preservation of marine mammals". In November 2020 Giggs won the

Nib Literary Award The Nib Literary Award, established in 2002 at the suggestion of actor and producer Chris Haywood, the Patron of the Friends of Waverley Library, as The Nib Waverley Library Award for Literature and since 2017 known as Mark and Evette Moran Nib A ...

and in February 2021 she won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction for ''Fathoms.'' Her book was also shortlisted for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction and the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. ''Fathoms'' won the Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer at the 2020

Western Australian Premier's Book Awards The Western Australian Premier's Book Awards is an annual book award provided by the Government of Western Australia, and managed by the State Library of Western Australia. History and format Annual literary awards were inaugurated by the Wes ...

and was shortlisted for the 2021

Stella Prize The Stella Prize is an Australian annual literary award established in 2013 for writing by Australian women in all genres, worth $50,000. It was originally proposed by Australian women writers and publishers in 2011, modelled on the UK's Baileys W ...

. In 2021 ''Fathoms'' was shortlisted for the

Wainwright Prize The Wainwright Prize is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of general outdoors, nature and UK-based travel writing. In 2020 it was split into the Wainwright Prize for UK nature writing and the Wainwright Prize for writing on globa ...

, alongside

David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

's ''A Life on Our Planet'' and others, in the Global Conservation Writing category''.'' She was shortlisted for the 2021 Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing for "Soundings", an extract from ''Fathoms.''

References

External links

Rebecca Giggs, Whale Writer
– ''Kirkus Reviews'' profile by Eric Liebetrau
What Lies Beneath
– review of Robert Macfarlane's '' Underland'' * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Giggs, Rebecca Living people Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian women writers 21st-century Australian writers University of Western Australia alumni Macquarie University faculty Australian essayists Science communicators Australian nature writers