Emily Ballou

b. 1968, Milwaukee

Emily Ballou is an Australian poet, novelist and screenwriter, currently residing in the UK.  In 1996, she was a recipient of the AFC’s New Screenwriters Scheme for her first feature screenplay, Sadie X-Ray. In 1997, she was awarded the Judith Wright Prize for Poetry for her poem, “Enter.”  She has worked with Gillian Armstrong adapting Helen Hodgman’s Waiting for Matindi for the screen, and wrote the short film “Mittens”, directed by Emma Freeman, which was Fox Searchlight’s 2004 contender for the Academy Awards.  She was one of The Sydney Morning Herald’s Best Young Novelists of 2003.  Her first two novels, Father Lands and Aphelion, were published by Picador Australia. Her first picture-book, One Blue Sock (illustrated by Stephen Michael King), was published by Random House. Her verse-portrait of Charles Darwin was published by University of Western Australia Press in 2009.