Madelaine Dickie loves to write, loves to surf and loves fishing with her hundred-pound handline. Over 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.
If you'd like to get in touch about my work or have any questions, I’d love to hear from you! For any media queries, author bookings, and sales head to Fremantle Press.
Awards, funding and residencies
‘We never drive at night’ longlisted in the Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, 2022
Shortlisted for a Western Australian Writer’s Fellowship in the 2020 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, 2021
Winner of an Australian Society of Authors (ASA) mentorship, 2021
Troppo longlisted for Queensland Writers Centre’s Adaptable, 2021
Shortlisted for a Hazel Rowley Fellowship, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020
Recipient of a Neilma Sidney Travelling Scholarship, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020
Recipient of funding from Regional Arts WA, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020
Recipient of WA Culture and the Arts funding and a Copyright Agency Ignite grant to attend a residency at Arquetopia International Artists Residency in San Pablo Etla, Mexico, Lines to the Horizon, 2019
Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Awards Fellowship, 2019
Troppo shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award, 2018
Troppo shortlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award, 2018
Recipient of a Tokyo-based AsiaLink Arts Residency, Red Can Origami, 2017
Winner of the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, Troppo, 2014
Shortlisted for the Robert Hope Memorial Prize, 2012
Recipient of a Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award, 2011
Winner of the Illawarra Mercury Journalism Prize, 2011
Winner of the Nicholas Pounder Prize, 2009