Reneé Pettitt-Schipp’s work with asylum seekers in detention on Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands inspired her first collection of poetry, The Sky Runs Right Through Us.

This collection was shortlisted for the Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and the CHASS Australia Prize, as well as winning the WA Premier’s Literary Award for an Emerging Writer.

Reneé’s non-fiction work about returning to the islands, The Archipelago of Us, will be released by Fremantle Press in 2023.

Reneé currently lives in Western Australia’s Great Southern region where she is working on her second poetry collection.

Read more about Reneé’s time on Christmas Island here.

Curriculum Vitae

Download PDF version here   

Qualifications and Associations

2020 – Awarded Doctor of Philosophy – Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, Curtin University

2017 – Vice President of the Out of the Asylum Writer’s Committee (OOTA)

2013 – Awarded First Class Honours in Creative Writing, Curtin University

2011 – Attained full accreditation as an English as a Second Language Teacher, Dept. Ed.Tr. W.A.

Awards

  • The Liquid Amber 2022 Poetry Prize (‘Nowanup’ Winner, 2022)
  • ‘World Award’ Grieve Writing Competition (‘After Fourteen Years, the Boorabbin Fire Finally Claims You’ Winner, 2022)
  • Tom Collins Poetry Prize (‘Love (and lost for words) in a Time of Covid’ Highly Commended, 2022)
  • Awarded Denmark Arts Inaugural Varuna Fellowship (‘The Archipelago of Us’, 2020)
  • Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, 2018 Premier’s Prize for an Emerging Writer (‘The Sky Runs Right Through Us’, Winner, awarded July 2019)
  • CHASS Australia Student Prize (‘The Sky Runs Right Through Us’, Shortlisted 2019)
  •  Humanities Research Awards, Greg Crombie Work of the Year (‘The Sky Runs Right Through Us’, Winner 2019)
  • Ros Spencer Poetry Prize (‘After Your Mother’s Fall’, Commended, 2017)
  • Grieve Poetry Prize (‘My Father Comes to the Island’, Shortlisted, 2017)
  • Glen Phillips Poetry Prize (‘On Forgetting’, Third Place, 2016)
  • Ethel Webb Bundell Literary Award (‘What the Rain Said’, Commended, 2016)
  • Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest (‘Love Letter’, Second Prize, 2016)
  • The Dorothy Hewett Award for an Unpublished Manuscript (‘Returning to Land’, Shortlisted, 2015)
  • Katherine Susannah Pritchard Poetry Awards (‘Black Stone’, Commended, 2015)
  • Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest (‘Autumn at the Cidery’, Highly Commended, 2015)
  • ACU Literature Prize (‘Parting Glass’, Shortlisted, 2014)
  • Ethel Webb Bundell Prize for Poetry (‘New Eyes at Wet Night Intersection’, Winner, 2010, and ‘Measuring Loss’, Highly Commended, 2012)
  • Trudy Graham Biennial Literary Award (‘Song to Self’, Shortlisted, 2010)

Publication History

Print Publication History

Publication through Exhibition and Performance