Jared Thomas

Jared Thomas (born 1976) is an Australian author of children's fiction, playwright, and museum curator. Several of his books have been shortlisted for awards, and he has been awarded several fellowships, including a Churchill Fellowship in 2019. Thomas is a research fellow for Indigenous culture and art at the South Australian Museum and the University of South Australia.

Early life and education

Thomas was born in Port Augusta in 1976, of Aboriginal, Scottish, and Irish heritage. He is a Nukunu man, born on Nukunu land in the Southern Flinders Ranges and raised within the Nukunu culture.

He was inspired by seeing the play Funerals and Circuses by Arrernte playwright Roger Bennett when on a school excursion to the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 1992 and decided to study the humanities and writing. After excelling in his undergraduate BA degree at the University of Adelaide (1996 and the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature. In September 2015, in a collaboration with Poets House in New York City, Thomas participated in a recording of six FNAWN members reading their work at a special event, which was recorded. The other readers were Jeanine Leane, Dub Leffler, Melissa Lucashenko, Bruce Pascoe, and Ellen van Neerven.

He has coordinated Nukunu People's Council cultural heritage, language, and arts projects. He was Arts Development Officer, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts at Arts SA in 2018,

In May 2018, Thomas began a 12-month secondment as William and Margaret Geary Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art and Material Culture at the South Australian Museum. In this role he curated the Yurtu Ardla exhibition from March to June 2019.

In September 2019, he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to travel to New Zealand, the US, Canada, and Norway, "to investigate colonised people's interpretative strategies in permanent gallery displays".

In 2020, Thomas was employed as Indigenous consultant on two ABC TV series, Stateless and Operation Buffalo.

In September 2024, he was appointed a member of First Nations Arts, a newly-established division of the government arts funding body Australia Council focused on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts, for a term of four years.

, Thomas is a research fellow for Indigenous culture and art at the South Australian Museum and the University of South Australia.

Awards Sweet Guy — 2002, shortlisted, Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature (SA): Award for an Unpublished Manuscript; 2006, shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards: Prize for Indigenous Writing Calypso Summer — 2013 winner, black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowships; 2014 — shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Indigenous Writing; winner, International White Raven award in 2015, selected by the International Youth Library in Munich, Germany, "given to books that deserve worldwide attention because of their universal themes and/or their exceptional and often innovative artistic and literary style and design". Patty Hits the Court: Game Day! — 2018, shortlisted, Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards: Best Book for Language Development, Indigenous Children Uncle Xbox (Book 2) Getting Dusty — 2023 winner, Daisy Utemorrah Award for Unpublished Indigenous Junior and Young Adult Fiction, Western Australian Premier's Book Awards My Spare Heart — 2023 shortlisted, Young Adult Book Award, Queensland Literary Awards

Works Novels

(Contents: 1. Game Day – Patty Hits the Court; 2. Game Day – Patty and the Shadows; 3. Game Day – Patty Takes Charge)

Plays Love, Land and Money (2002) Flash Red Ford (1999) - toured Uganda and Kenya, performed by a Ugandan company. Non-fiction "Daredevil Days", chapter in Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia. Black Inc. 2018. ISBN 9781863959810