SATA

PERSONAL

Born 1975, in Perth, Western Australia, Australia; daughter of Sally Morgan (a children’s book writer and artist); married; has children.

University of Western Australia, LL.B. (with honours), Ph.D.

ADDRESS

• Office - University of Western Australia, Law School, 35 Stirling Hwy., Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
• Agent - Tara Wynne, Curtis Brown Australia, P.O. Box 19, Paddington, New South Wales 2021, Australia.

CAREER

Writer, illustrator, and educator. Worked for the Australian government and in politics; University of Western Australia, Crawley, assistant professor of law; University of Western Australia Law School, Perth, senior lecturer on faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education.

Notable Book designation, Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA), 2007, for Crow and the Waterhole; (with Ezekiel Kwaymullina) CBCA Notable Book designation, Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2008, for The Two-Hearted Numbat; Aurealis Award shortlist in Science Fiction and Young-Adult Fiction categories, both 2012, both for The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf; (with Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Victorian Premier’s Prize for Writing for Young Adults, 2019, for Catching Teller Crow.

WRITINGS

• SELF-ILLUSTRATED PICTURE BOOKS
• CHAPTER BOOKS
• YOUNG-ADULT NOVELS
• “THE TRIBE” YOUNG-ADULT NOVEL SERIES
• ILLUSTRATOR
• Crow and the Waterhole, Fremantle Press (Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia), 2007
• (With brother Ezekiel Kwaymullina) The Two-Hearted Numbat, Fremantle Press (North Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia), 2008
• Caterpillar and Butterfly, Fremantle Press (Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia), 2009
• How Frogmouth Found Her Home, Fremantle Press (North Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia), 2010
• (With mother Sally Morgan) Bush Bash!, Little Hare (Richmond, New South Wales, Australia), 2012
• The Lost Girl, illustrated by Leanne Tobin, Walker Books Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), 2014
• (With mother Sally Morgan) Curly Saves Grandma’s House , illustrated by Adam Hill, Random House Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), 2008
• (With mother Sally Morgan and brothers Blaze Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Curly and the Fent , illustrated by Adam Hill, Random House Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), 2009
• (With mother Sally Morgan and brothers Blaze Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina) The Land of Kur (“Stopwatch” fantasy series), Walker Books Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), 2009
• (With brothers Blaze Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Charlie Burr and the Great Shed Invasion, illustrated by Peter Sheehan, Little Hare (Richmond, New South Wales, Australia), 2011
• (With mother Sally Morgan and brother Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Charlie Burr and the Three Stolen Dollars, Little Hare (Richmond, New South Wales, Australia), 2011
• (With mother Sally Morgan and brother Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Charlie Burr and the Crazy Cockroach Disaster, illustrated by Matt Ottley, Little Hare (Richmond, New South Wales, Australia), 2012
• (With brother Ezekiel Kwaymullina) Catching Teller Crow, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), , published as The Things She’s Seen, Knopf Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2018
• The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, Walker Books Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), , Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2012
• The Disappearance of Ember Crow, Walker Books Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), , Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2013
• The Foretelling of Georgie Spider, Walker Books Australia (Newtown, New South Wales, Australia), , Candlewick Press (Somerville, MA), 2014
• Sally Morgan, Joey Counts to Ten, Little Hare (Richmond, New South Wales, Australia), 2016
• Sally Morgan, Dream Little One, Dream, Penguin Books Australia (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2016
• Sally Morgan, My Mum’s Special Secret, Penguin Books Australia (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2016
• Sally Morgan, I Love Me, Penguin Books Australia (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 2016
• Sarah Boese, A Is for Anteater, Scholastic Australia (Gosford, New South Wales, Australia), 2017
• Sally Morgan, The Perfect Thing, Omnibus Books (Gosford, New South Wales, Australia), 2017
• Sally Morgan, Benny Bungarra’s Big Bush Clean-Up, Magabala Books (Broome, Western Australia, Australia), 2018
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Also author of The Butterfly Birthday. Work represented in anthology The Trouble with Tradition: Native Title and Cultural Change, edited by Simon Young, Federation Press, 2007. Contributor of articles to academic journals, including Australian Feminist Law Journal, Environmental Law & Planning Journal, Indigenous Law Bulletin, and Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues.

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf was adapted for audiobook, read by Candice Moll, Brilliance Audio, 2014; The Disappearance of Ember Crow was adapted for audiobook, read by Cara Gee, Brilliance Audiobook, 2016.

SIDELIGHTS

An Australian author as well as an artist and law professor, Ambelin Kwaymullina draws on her Aboriginal Palyku tribal heritage in her picture books, chapter books, and young-adult novels. In stories such as Crow and the Waterhole, Caterpillar and Butterfly, and How Frogmouth Found Her Home, Kwaymullina embeds simple human truths characteristic of time-honored “teaching stories” and evokes the landscape of her native Western Australia in her brightly colored folk-style art. Her “The Tribe” trilogy for teens takes a darker view of life in its tale of three teenage rebels whose special powers have been outlawed by a repressive state.

Several of Kwaymullina’s stories are collaborations with her mother, noted children’s book author Sally Morgan, and her younger brothers Ezekiel and Blaze Kwaymullina have joined the mother/daughter duo on chapter books such as Charlie Burr and the Great Shed Invasion. Also coauthored with Ezekiel, a writer for children, her award-winning picture book The Two-Hearted Numbat tells the tale of a small Australian mammal called the numbat as he debates between two hearts. The heart of stone gives him courage and strength, while the feather heart fosters empathy for others. When a wise man sends the young numbat on a quest, the creature learns how to harness the strengths of both hearts.

In her “The Tribe” trilogy, Kwaymullina draws teen readers into a near-future world where Earth has been devastated by an environmental disaster that survivors call the Reckoning. In series opener The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, Ashala is sixteen years old and a sleepwalker: she can move outside her body during the dream state. Along with several other “Illegals” with strange powers over nature and the weather, Ashala lives in the wild lands, out of sight of the government. When she is tricked by a fellow Tribe member and captured, she is sent to the forbidding Detention Center Three. There she must find a way to keep scientists from using her thoughts and memories to capture other Illegals.

The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf “draws upon Aboriginal Australian creation stories to bring much-needed diversity to the genre,” opined Summer Hayes in a review in Booklist, and a Kirkus Reviews critic suggested that, “If an ‘exhilaration dystopia’ strikes you as oxymoronic, this vivid, original debut just might change your mind.” In the view of Horn Book critic Deirdre F. Baker, Kwaymullina’s “futuristic fantasy offers an admirable heroine and a thought-provoking situation,” and School Library Journal critic Kathleen E. Gruver recommended The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf “to dystopia fans who are looking for a unique perspective.”

Kwaymullina continues the series in The Disappearance of Ember Crow and The Foretelling of Georgie Spider, both of which focus on Ashala’s fellow Tribe members. In the first novel, Ashala is rescued from Detention Center Three and returns home to the Firstwood, the Tribe’s wilderness home. The teens’ peaceful existence in this primeval forest, which they share with giant lizards called saurs, is disrupted when Ember Crow now disappears, leaving behind a note explaining that secrets from her past could endanger the rebel community. Determined to rescue her friend, Ashala searches for clues to Ember’s whereabouts, aided by boyfriend Connor. Their path once again takes them out of safety and into danger. That danger becomes more real when Ashala’s death is prophesied in The Foretelling of Georgie Spider, the final volume in Kwaymullina’s futuristic series.

With her brother Ezekiel, Kwaymullina published the stand-alone young-adult novel Catching Teller Crow, which was released in the United States as The Things She’s Seen. Beth Teller, a biracial Australian girl, has perished in a car accident, which as a lingering ghost she cannot remember. Her father, a white detective who was rejected by his parents for marrying an Aboriginal woman but who has stayed eternally devoted to his wife and children, is grief-stricken. Hoping to help him move on as he gets back to work, Beth manages to involve herself in the investigation of the possible arson of a children’s home—a crime that harbors significant secrets. To discern them, they must first solve the riddles of mysterious witness Isobel Catching.

A Kirkus Reviews writer was impressed with Kwaymullina’s treatment of a solemn history of violence in this “important” novel, perceiving that the “artful language softens the blows of pain and fear.” Adding that the fast pace and supernatural elements make for a taut thriller, the reviewer concluded that The Things She’s Seen stands on a message of empowerment, giving the female heroines “pride in their lineage and power in remembering.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

• Booklist, April 15, 2014, Summer Hayes, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 49.

• Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, April, 2014, Kate Quealy-Gainer, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 40.

• Horn Book, March-April, 2014, Deirdre F. Baker, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 123.

• Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2014, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf; March 15, 2016, review of The Disappearance of Ember Crow; April 1, 2019, review of The Things She’s Seen.

• Publishers Weekly, February 3, 2014, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 58.

• School Librarian, summer, 2014, Lucy Carlton-Walker, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 119.

• School Library Journal, April, 2014, Kathleen E. Gruver, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 168; March, 2016, Kathleen E. Gruver, review of The Disappearance of Ember Crow, p. 144.

• Voice of Youth Advocates, April, 2014, Sarah Schmitt, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf, p. 84.

ONLINE

• Ambelin Kwaymullina website, http://ambelin-kwaymullina.com.au (June 7, 2019).

• Guardian (London, England), http://www.theguardian.com/ (February 25, 2014), Lottie Longshanks, review of The Interrogation of Ashala Wolf.

• University of Western Australia website, https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ (June 7, 2019), “Ambelin Kwaymullina.”*