Claire G. Coleman

Claire G. Coleman is an Aboriginal Australian novelist, essayist, and poet from Western Australia. She is known for her 2017 debut novel, Terra Nullius, which won the Norma K Hemming Award, and the non-fiction work Lies, Damned Lies, which won the 2022 University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award in the Queensland Literary Awards.

Early life

Claire G. Coleman was born in 1974. She is Noongar woman of the Wirlomin language group.

The manuscript of Coleman's debut novel, Terra Nullius, resulted in Coleman being awarded the State Library of Queensland's 2016 black&write! Indigenous writing fellowship. After publication, it won the Norma K Hemming Award.
She gave the Loris Williams Memorial Lecture at the 2018 Australian Society of Archivists conference.
Coleman's essay, "After the Grog War", was shortlisted for the 2018 Horne Prize, while another essay, "Hidden in Plain Sight", was shortlisted for the 2019 Horne Prize.
Coleman has also written short fiction and poetry.

2017 Aurealis Award for best science fiction novel shortlist for Terra Nullius
2018 Horne Prize shortlist for "After the Grog War"
2018 MUD Literary Prize finalist for Terra Nullius
2018 Stella Prize shortlist for Terra Nullius
2019 Horne Prize shortlist for "Hidden in Plain Sight"
2019 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Awards Debut shortlist for Terra Nullius
2019 Queensland Poetry Festival Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award for "Pelin"
2020 Peter Porter Poetry Prize shortlist for "That Wadjela Tongue"
2020 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Indigenous Poetry Prize shortlist
2022 Queensland Literary Awards: University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award for ''Lies, Damned Lies''