Dr Rosie Scott, AM, is an internationally published novelist, who has also worked in many other fields centring around human rights and social justice. Her latest novel Faith Singer was included in an international list of ‘50 Essential Reads by living Writers’ compiled by the Guardian, Orange Prize Committee and the Hay Literary Festival. Check out the full list. The other Australian writers were Tim Winton and  J. Coetzee. 

Faith Singer was also included in the 200 top literary Australian works compiled by CAL for their Reading Australia project.

http://readingaustralia.com.au/Books/FaithSinger.aspx

See also Georgia Blain's superb essay on 'Faith Singer'
http://readingaustralia.com.au/Books/FaithSinger/Essay.aspx

 

She has been a judge of many literary awards including the Steele Rudd Literary Award, the NSW Premier’s Award, Christina Stead Prize, adjudicating on the Kenneth Slessor Prize of the same year, the Australian Society of Authors’ Barbara Jefferis Award and is at present one of the judges appointed for three years for the Nita Kibble Award. She was also asked to be a judge for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2014 but the new Abbott government opted for more ‘like-minded’ judges.
(See story in SMH.)

Rosie's latest book is The Intervention: an Anthology, described by Anna Funder as ‘an indispensable contribution to the debate.”
In this  historic anthology, Rosie Scott and fellow editor, Anita Heiss gathered together the work of twenty of Australian’s finest writers both Indigenous and non-Indigenous together with powerful statements from Northern Territory Elders to bring a new dimension and urgency to an issue that has remained largely outside the public radar.

A Country Too Far is the acclaimed anthology which she coedited with Tom Keneally and which features some of Australia’s best known writers including Geraldine Brooks, Anna Funder, Raimond Gaita, Gail Jones Les Murray, Dorothy Hewett, Rodney Hall and Christos Tsiolkas.

Glory Days, her first novel was published in the International Crimes Series in UK, Germany and USA, shortlisted for the New Zealand National Book Award, voted in  the Top Ten Kiwi Rock Books and nominated for the List of Books you must read before you Die - a must read list of New Zealand and Australian titles. 2011 Bookbloggers’ choice: Must Read Literary Fiction recommended by ANZLitLovers and Reading Matters.

In 2011, Lives on Fire was voted onto the Alternative Miles Franklin longlist (if the Stella Prize had existed back then.)

Awards

Her novels have been finalists in most major book awards including, the NSW  Premiers Fiction Award, Banjo Patterson Writing Award, The National Book Award and The New Zealand National Book Awards.

Her stage play won the Bruce Mason National Playwrights' Award and was later made into a movie, Redheads which won five international awards in Japan and France.

Recipient of three literary fellowships and a UWS university scholarship for her doctorate.

Recipient of the Sydney PEN Award:

Read complete citation

Nomination for a Human Rights Medal nomination together with Tom Keneally for their work on detained writers and the anthology, which was also cited by the judges as instrumental in earning a Community Human Rights Award for Australia PEN.

In 2012 she was awarded a Lifetime Membership for her work for PEN. See Denise Leith's summary of her work for PEN.

2012: nominated as one of the 100 most influential people in Sydney for her educational work - mentoring, teaching and the work she has done in public education about asylum seekers.

Awarded the 2015 STARTTS  Humanitarian Award for exceptional positive contribution towards refugee issues, in particular, the two anthologies co-edited with Tom Keneally.

 

Memberships

• Served  on the Committee of Management and on the Executive  of the Australian Society of Authors for ten years, during which time she was elected Chair.
• Appointed to the Permanent Council of the Australian Society of Authors. 
• Served on the Sydney PEN committee for eight years, established and chaired  Writers in Detention Committee with Tom Keneally,with whom she edited an anthology of refugee writing,Another Country  and was elected Vice President of Sydney PEN.
• Co–founded the national reconciliation organisation Women for Wik ten years ago and continues on the committee.   

Education

Doctorate in Creative Arts from UWS,

MA Honours in English from Victoria University, Wellington, 

Graduate Diploma in Counselling (with an outstanding student citation,) from Institute of Counselling, Sydney,

BA from Auckland University,

Graduate Diploma in Drama (A pass) from Auckland University,

Partially-completed Degree in Social Work from Massey University.

 

Teaching

University tutor in creative writing at UTS since 2004.