Biography:Rebecca Giggs

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Short description: Australian writer


Rebecca Giggs is a Perth-based Australian nonfiction writer, known for Fathoms: The World in the Whale.

Career

Giggs studied at the University of Western Australia. She holds an LLB, BA Arts (Hons) and a PhD in ecological literary studies conferred in 2014.[1]

Giggs is an honorary fellow at the Macquarie University in Sydney.[2] She was awarded the 2017 Mick Dark flagship fellowship by Varuna for "The Whale in the Room", the working title for Fathoms.[3] She won support from Writers Victoria through the Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund to visit the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany as a writing fellow in 2018.[4]

As an essayist, Giggs has contributed to The Atlantic on science subjects from "Why We're Afraid of Bats" to "Human Drugs Are Polluting the Water—And Animals Are Swimming in It".[5]

Her first book, Fathoms: The World in the Whale, was published in 2020 worldwide by Scribe[6] and by Simon & Schuster in the USA.[7]

Awards and recognition

Kirkus Reviews named Fathoms in their "10 Top Summer Reads in Nonfiction"[8] and described the book as "a thoughtful, ambitiously crafted appeal for the preservation of marine mammals".[9] In November 2020 Giggs won the Nib Literary Award[10] and in February 2021 she won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Nonfiction for Fathoms.[11] Her book was also shortlisted for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction[12] and the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.[13] Fathoms won the Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer at the 2020 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards[14] and was shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize.[15] In 2021 Fathoms was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize, alongside David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet and others, in the Global Conservation Writing category.[16] She was shortlisted for the 2021 Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing for "Soundings", an extract from Fathoms.[17][18]

References

  1. "Award Verification Service: Rebecca April Giggs" (in en). https://www.student.uwa.edu.au/course/award-verification-service?family=Giggs&given=Rebecca&search=Search. 
  2. "Rebecca Giggs" (in en). https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/rebecca-giggs. 
  3. "Varuna announces recipients of 2017 Residency Fellowships" (in en-AU). 2016-10-04. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2016/10/04/78997/varuna-announces-recipients-of-2017-residency-fellowships/. 
  4. "Writers Victoria announces Neilma Sidney Literary Travel Fund round-two recipients" (in en-AU). 2018-04-11. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2018/04/11/105576/writers-victoria-announces-neilma-sidney-literary-travel-fund-round-two-recipients/. 
  5. Giggs, Rebecca. "Rebecca Giggs" (in en-US). https://www.theatlantic.com/author/rebecca-giggs/. 
  6. Giggs, Rebecca (2020). Fathoms: The world in the whale. Brunswick, Victoria: Scribe Publications. ISBN 978-1-925321-38-8. OCLC 1153440206. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1153440206. 
  7. Giggs, Rebecca (2020). Fathoms: The world in the whale (First ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2069-6. OCLC 1124313331. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1124313331. 
  8. Liebetrau, Eric (2020-07-06). "10 Top Summer Reads in Nonfiction" (in en). https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/10-top-summer-reads-in-nonfiction/. 
  9. "Fathoms: The World in the Whale". 2020-05-15. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rebecca-giggs/fathoms/. 
  10. "'Fathoms' wins Nib Literary Award" (in en-AU). 2020-11-12. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2020/11/12/159454/fathoms-wins-nib-literary-award/. 
  11. "Giggs wins ALA Andrew Carnegie Medal" (in en-AU). 2020-02-09. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/02/09/162453/giggs-wins-ala-andrew-carnegie-medal/. 
  12. "The 2020 Kirkus Prize". https://www.bookreporter.com/features/awards/the-2020-kirkus-prize. 
  13. "Announcing the 2021 PEN America Literary Awards Finalists" (in en). 2021-02-10. https://pen.org/literary-awards/2021-pen-america-literary-awards-finalists/. 
  14. "WA Premier's Book Awards announced" (in en-AU). 2021-08-26. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/08/26/192143/wa-premiers-book-awards-announced/. 
  15. "Stella Prize 2021 shortlist announced" (in en-AU). 2021-03-25. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/03/25/183993/stella-prize-2021-shortlist-announced/. 
  16. "Sethi, Winn and Rebanks shortlisted for Wainwright Prize". 2021-08-21. https://www.thebookseller.com/news/sethi-winn-and-rebanks-shortlisted-wainwright-prize-1274286. 
  17. "Rebecca Giggs shortlisted for Bragg Prize for Science Writing | Rebecca-giggs-shortlisted-for-bragg-prize-for-science-writing | Scribe Publications" (in en-AU). 2021-10-13. https://scribepublications.com.au/blog/rebecca-giggs-shortlisted-for-bragg-prize-for-science-writing. 
  18. "Bragg Prize for Science Writing shortlist announced" (in en-AU). 2021-10-12. https://www.booksandpublishing.com.au/articles/2021/10/12/194998/bragg-prize-for-science-writing-shortlist-announced/. 

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