Authors among Australia Day honours
Several authors have been recognised in the annual Australia Day honours.
Aotearoa New Zealand children’s writer and illustrator Pamela Allen has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). Allen has published over 50 picture books since the 1980s, with six commendations at the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards and two New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards. Allen has also previously received the Margaret Mahy Medal.
Folklorist, social historian and author June Factor received an AM ‘for significant service to literature, to history, and to the community’. She is the compiler of a range of 1980s children’s books, including Far Out, Brussel Sprout! (Brolly Books). Her history book Soldiers and Aliens (MUP, 2022) received the Anzac Memorial Trustees Military History Prize.
Author and poet Kate Llewellyn received an AM ‘for significant service to literature as an author and poet’. Among her publications, she is the author of The Waterlily: A Blue Mountains Journal (Hudson) and Playing with Water: A Story of a Garden (HarperCollins). She has published various books of poetry, including the recent collection Harbour: Poems 2000–2019 (Wakefield Press), and she is the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets (with Susan Hampton, Penguin).
Academic Anna Haebich received an AM ‘for significant service to literature as an author, historian and academic’. Among Haebich’s works are Dancing in Shadows: Histories of Nyungar performance (UWAP), which was shortlisted in the Australian history category of the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards, and Broken Circles: Fragmenting Indigenous Families 1800–2000 (Fremantle Press), which won the AIATSIS Stanner Award and both the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers’ Book of the Year awards.
Researcher Robert French received an AM ‘for significant service to the LGBTIQA+ community, and to history preservation’. In 1993, French published the collection Camping by a Billabong: Gay and lesbian stories from Australian history (Blackwattle Press).
David Parer was also appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) ‘for distinguished service to wildlife cinematography, to literature as an author, and to the environment’. Besides his filmmaking career, with Elizabeth Parer-Cook, he has co-written the books Platypus: World’s Strangest Animal (Aurora Books) and Douglas Mawson: The Survivor (Alella).
Category: Local news
