Samuel Wagan Watson in conversation with Ellen van Neerven: Celebrating the First Nations Classics series

Join leading writers Samuel Wagan Watson and Ellen van Neerven for a conversation about Samuel’s 2004 volume of poetry Smoke Encrypted Whispers, now part of UQP’s First Nations Classics series. Showcasing Wagan Watson’s imaginative brilliance, this publication is a stunning collection of exhilarating poems, urban songlines and ancestral ties that have become the hallmarks of this poet.  

Smoke Encrypted Whispers (2004) by Samuel Wagan Watson and Heat and Light (2014) by Ellen van Neerven have both been republished as part of UQP’s First Nations Classics series and will be available for purchase at the event. 

This event is presented by the School of Communication and Arts in collaboration with the University of Queensland Press, AustLit and UQ Art Museum. An informal afternoon tea with the speakers will follow the conversation. 

Banner image: Left: Portait of Samuel Wagan Watson, courtesy of the Artist. Right: Ellen van Neervan, Photo by Anna Jacobson.

Samuel Wagan Watson

Hailing from the honourable ancestors of the Birra-Gubba, Mununjali, Germanic and Gaelic peoples, Samuel Wagan Watson grew up in a family of accomplished authors, political players, entrepreneurs, academics, artists and raconteurs. His collection of poetry Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight won the 1999 David Unaipon Award for unpublished Indigenous writers. Since then he has written Hotel Bone (2001); Itinerant Blues (2002); Smoke Encrypted Whispers (2004), which won the 2005 New South Wales Premier’s Book of the Year and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the New South Wales Premier's Book of the Year; The Curse Words (2011); and Love Poems and Death Threats (2014), which won the 2016 Scanlon Award for Indigenous Poetry and was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. His work has been translated into seven languages, inspired various musical compositions, and has been the subject of film and television productions and visual art projects. In 2018 Samuel was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award. Samuel’s new book New + Used Ghosts will be out in 2025.

Ellen van Neervan

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh and Dutch heritage. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers’ Prize. They are the author of two poetry collections: Comfort Food, which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize; and Throat, which won the Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Multicultural NSW Award and Book of the Year in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Their memoir, Personal Score, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Non-fiction in 2023.