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NADIA
WHEATLEY
Nadia Wheatley has a list of award-winning
titles that cover the genres of fiction, history, biography
and picture books. She writes for adults as well as for young
people. Nadia is an inspiring speaker, with 25 years experience
of giving lectures, talks and workshops to young people and
adults, at all levels of education.
Using the
theme ‘Letting the Landscape Tell the Story’,
Nadia offers interactive talks to primary and secondary students.
As well as explaning how she gets her ideas from place, Nadia shows
many examples of art by the various illustrators with whom she
has worked.
For secondary
students and adults, Nadia offers practical workshops on writing
short stories. She demonstrates her ideas with examples from her
recently published anthology, Listening to Mondrian.
   
Together
with artist / designer Ken Searle, Nadia
also offers hands-on environmental workshops that combine writing
poetry with art and design. These are suitable for students from
Years 3-12.
After work
with Ken and Nadia, one NESB student wrote: ‘I really
liked art and I learnt how to shade, and how to draw things faster,
but most of all I really improved my writing’.
Since the
beginning of her career, Nadia’s books have reflected her
commitment to social justice. Her first book, Five Times
Dizzy, was often described as the first multicultural
children’s booking this country.
My
Place, illustrated by Donna Rawlins, showed Australia's
history through the eyes of many different children who lived
in one place over hundreds and even thousands of years.
 
Highway (illustrated
by Andrew McLeam) is one of the rare picture books to portray the
working life of an Australian family who live in the outer suburbs.
In novels
for young adults such as The House that Was Eureka, The
Blooding, and Vigil, Nadia Wheatley has
tackled issues such as unemployment, homelessness, conservation,
and the dangers of drug abuse.
Over the
period 1998-2001 Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle worked as consultants
at the school at Papunya (NT). As part of their work, they helped
forty Indigenous staff and students produce their own book, the
multi-award winning Papunya School Book of Country and
History.
 
In 2005 Nadia and Ken developed an innovative Harmony project with infant and
primary students from Muslim, Catholic and state schools in Sydney's south-west.
Examples of the students' writing and art are included in the picture book Going
Bush (2007), which has a narrative text by Nadia and is illustrated
and designed by Ken.
After the
Harmony project was concluded, one student wrote: “On
this journey I experienced the bush and I experienced life. I found
a brand new way to learn, and know new things.”
Awards won
by Nadia Wheatley’s books for young people include the NSW
Premier's Children's Book Prize (1983 and 1986), the Children's
Book of the Year for Younger Readers (1988), the inaugural Eve
Pownall Award (1988), and seven honour listings in the CBCA Awards.
Her biography of Charmain Clift was the Age Book of the Year for
Non-Fiction (2001) and won the NSW Premier’s History Award
for Australian History (2002).
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