Madelaine Dickie

Madelaine Dickie loves to write, loves to surf and loves fishing with her hundred-pound handline. In the last twelve years she’s wandered and worked in Jakarta, Broome, Wyndham, Tokyo, Exmouth and Arnhem Land. In 2022, she took off on an eight-month surf drift through Mexico with her husband and eighteen-month-old son. They had a pistachio-coloured Nissan. The car’s transmission blew just shy of a mountain pass boobytrapped with bandits. A week later it caught fire at a border crossing. When Madelaine takes a break from living dangerously you can find her at the desk, writing. Her debut novel Troppo won the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and was shortlisted in the Dobbie Literary Awards and for a Barbara Jefferis Award. Her second novel Red Can Origami was written with the assistance of an Asialink Arts Residency at Youkobo Art Space in Japan. She’s won a Prime Minister’s Asia Australia Endeavour Award, an Illawarra Mercury Journalism Prize and has twice been shortlisted in the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Awards. In addition to writing novels and non-fiction, Madelaine has served as editor in chief of National Indigenous Times and spent over ten years working for Traditional Owner-led organisations as a graphic designer and media officer. She’s currently a Director of The Skill Engineer, a bold social enterprise that’s creating purposeful futures for young people.