Emily Ballou is an Australian-American poet, novelist and screenwriter. Her poetry collection The Darwin Poems, a verse portrait of Charles Darwin, was published by University of Western Australia Press in 2009. It was written as part of an Australia Council for the Arts residency at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in County Monaghan, Ireland.
Background Emily Ballou was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She studied Film and English at University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, graduating with a Bachelor in Fine Arts with Honours and completed a Master of Letters in Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. She subsequently immigrated to Australia. She now lives in Glasgow, Scotland.
Career She wrote the "Anouk" and "Aisha" episodes of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's television mini-series The Slap, the original adaptation of Christos Tsiolkas' novel of the same name, which won the 2012 AWGIE Awards for Television Mini-Series (Adaptation). It was aired in the UK on BBC Four and nominated for a Royal Television Society Programme Award, a BAFTA Award and an International Emmy Award.
Ballou has also written episodes of BBC One/FX Taboo, Channel 4/AMC Humans, BBC One's Case Histories (series 2, "Nobody's Darling"), ITV's Scott & Bailey, National Geographic's TV movie American Blackout, co-written with Ewan Morrison, and Family, directed by Shaun Gladwell in the anthology film The Turning, adapted from Tim Winton's book of short stories and screened in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival. Her television series One Night started filming in February 2023.
She is also the author of the novels Father Lands (Picador, 2002)Next stop after the comfort zone. smh.com.au (2002-12-21). Retrieved on 2010-11-22. and Aphelion (Picador, 2007), as well as the picture book One Blue Sock (Random House, 2007) (with illustrations by Stephen Michael King).
Awards and nominations 1997 – Judith Wright Award for Poetry for the poem "Enter" 2003 – The Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist for Father Lands
2009 – Anne Elder Award: Highly Commended for The Darwin Poems 2009 – Wesley Michel Wright Prize for The Darwin Poems
2010 – ALS Gold Medal: Shortlisted for The Darwin Poems 2010 – Mary Gilmore Prize: Shortlisted for The Darwin Poems 2010 – New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards: Shortlisted for The Darwin Poems 2010 – Western Australian Premier's Book Awards: Shortlisted for The Darwin Poems
Bibliography
Books
Illust Stephen Michael King.
Anthologies 2008 – "On the Splice", Best Australian Short StoriesFalconer, D (ed.) (2008). "On the Splice", Best Australian Short Stories, Black Inc., . 2009 – "Here Is a Hair from Her Head", Best Australian Short StoriesFalconer, D (ed.) (2009). "Here is a Hair From Her Head", Best Australian Short Stories, Black Inc., . 2010 – "Darwin as Metaphor", Journal 19: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, Birkbeck: University of London, No. 11, pp. 1–17.No 11 (2010) . 19.bbk.ac.uk. Retrieved on 2010-11-22. 2010 – "The Beach", The Penguin Book of the OceanBradley, J (ed.) (2010). "The Beach", The Penguin Book of the Ocean, Penguin Australia,
References
External links
Emily Ballou interviewed for the Darwin Correspondence Project Emily Ballou "Darwin as Metaphor", Journal 19 Emily Ballou interviewed by Sarah L'Estrange on ABC radio's The Book Show, Dec 9th, 2009 Emily Ballou interviewed by Mark Metcalf, Aug 19th, 2010 "Darwin's Noah" on YouTube Emily Ballou reads "The Kite", The Red Room Company Emily Ballou interviews Hanif Kureshi for The Australian Magazine, Nov 15th, 2008 Emily Ballou "Twenty Questions for the Nation", New Matilda, May 1, 2008