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Maxine Beneba Clarke Maxine Beneba Clarke i(A121996 works by) (a.k.a. Maxine Clarke)
Gender: Female
Heritage: Afro-Caribbean
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BiographyHistory

Maxine Clarke is an Australian writer and slam poet of Afro-Caribbean descent. Born and raised in Kellyville, in suburban Sydney, she is the daughter of a mathematician and an actress, who emigrated from England in the 1970s. Clarke holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts/Law (majoring in Creative Writing and Human Rights) from the University of Wollongong.

Clarke was a title holder of the NSW Writers' Centre/Gleebooks Annual Poetry Sprint, placed second in the Doris Leadbetter Poetry Slam, and the Northern Notes Poetry Slam, and was a finalist in the Melbourne Writers' Festival Poetry Slam during the 1990s.

Her short plays have been produced and her poetry broadcast on radio and presented at writers' festivals. Her reviews, articles and poems have been published in Tertangala, Voiceworks, Kunapipi Academic Journal of Post-Colonial Literature, The Sydney Observer, Melbourne's Child, Conscious Living, The Age, and The Saturday Paper, among other periodicals and newspapers.

After publishing a range of short works, Clarke released Foreign Soil, a collection of short stories with a particular focus on the African diaspora, in 2014: it had won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript in the previous year and went on to win an Indie Award (debut fiction) and an Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) (Australian literary fiction book of the year), as well as attracting shortlistings for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, the ABIA Matt Richell Award, and the Stella Prize. In 2015, it saw Clarke named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists of the Year.

In 2016, Clarke followed up with a flurry of works: the memoir The Hate Race, the poetry collection Carrying the World, and the children's picture book The Patchwork Bike. All three attracted further awards: The Patchwork Bike was named a Children's Book Council notable book, Carrying the World won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for poetry (and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award), and The Hate Race won a NSW Premier's Literary Award, as well as earning Clarke her second nomination for the Stella Prize (among other shortlistings). The Patchwork Bike went on to earn a range of awards, including the picture book category at the 2019 Boston Globe - Horn Book Awards.

Exhibitions

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Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon How Decent Folk Behave Sydney : Hachette Australia , 2021 22587333 2021 selected work poetry

'we are all just one small disaster

away from sinking,

and sometimes you only realise

when you're gasping for air

'On a daylight street in Minneapolis Minnesota, a Black man is asphyxiated - by callous knee of an officer, by cruel might of state, and under crushing weight of colony. In Melbourne the body of another woman has been found - this time, after catching a late tram home.

'The Atlantic has run out of the English alphabet, when christening hurricanes this season. The earth is on fire - from the redwoods of California, to Australia's east coast. The sea draws back, and tsunamis lash out in Samoa and Sumatra. Water rises in Sulawesi and Nagasaki. Bloated cod are surfacing, all along the Murray Darling.

'The virus arrives, and the virus thrives. Authorities seal the public housing towers up, and truck in one cop to every five residents. Notre Dame is ablaze - the cathedral spire blackened, and teetering.

'Out in Biloela, the deportation vans have arrived. Every Friday, in cities all across the world, children are walking out of school. The wolves are circling. The wolves are circling.

'These poems speak of the world that is, and sing for a world that may one day be.' (Production summary)

2022 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards The C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry
y separately published work icon When We Say Black Lives Matter Sydney : Lothian , 2020 19895154 2020 single work picture book children's 'Little one, when we say Black Lives Matter,

we're saying black people are wonderful-strong.
That we deserve to be treated with basic respect,
and that history's done us wrong.

'From birth to the end of school, in joy and in sorrow, on the trumpet and the djembe, at home and in the community, a black child's parents remind him why Black Lives Matter.

'A gorgeous and essential picture book for children of all ages from bestselling and award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2022 nominated Kate Greenaway Medal
2021 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Children's Picture Book of the Year
y separately published work icon When We Say Black Lives Matter Sydney : Lothian , 2020 19895154 2020 single work picture book children's 'Little one, when we say Black Lives Matter,

we're saying black people are wonderful-strong.
That we deserve to be treated with basic respect,
and that history's done us wrong.

'From birth to the end of school, in joy and in sorrow, on the trumpet and the djembe, at home and in the community, a black child's parents remind him why Black Lives Matter.

'A gorgeous and essential picture book for children of all ages from bestselling and award-winning author Maxine Beneba Clarke.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2022 nominated Kate Greenaway Medal
2021 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Children's Picture Book of the Year
Last amended 15 Nov 2021 12:57:56
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