Kim Mahood

Kim Mahood (born 1953) is an Australian writer and artist based in Wamboin, New South Wales. She spends several months each year in the Tanami and Great Sandy Desert regions where she grew up.

Mahood grew up on Mongrel Downs in the Northern Territory of Australia, which was subsequently known as Tanami Downs Station; this area is now owned by the Mangkururrpa Aboriginal Land Trust. Her early life there features heavily in her literary work, including in her two-part biography Craft for a Dry Lake (2000) and Position Doubtful: Mapping Landscapes and Memories (2016). She has maintained strong connections with the Warlpiri traditional owners of Mongrel Down and with the families of the Walmajarri stockmen who worked with her family. who had worked across the Northern Territory on various cattle stations and, when Mahood was born, her father was employed by the Department of Native Affairs on the newly established Hooker Creek Native Settlement (now known as Lajamanu) until they relocated due to Mahood's health deteriorating and they were relocated to Beswick in Arnhem Land.

However, due to a number of frustrations of the bureaucracy of working for the Department of Native Affairs, Mahood's father soon left to work for Colonel Rose in the animal industry branch (AIB) and this job meant that the family travelled throughout the Northern Territory on a regular basis and the family spent four years living in Finke as a part of her father's role. and this sad event prompted Mahood to make her first trip back to Mongrel Downs in 1992.

Mahood's first biography, Craft for a Dry Lake (2000), which won the NSW Premier's Award for non-fiction and was named The Age Book of the Year for non-fiction, is the result of this journey and she says:

Mahood won the 2013 Peter Blazey Fellowship for manuscript development.

Mahood's second biography, Position Doubtful: Mapping Landscapes and Memories (2016) tracks her itinerant life and work since her first and remains focused on Central Australia and exploring her "unusual position at the interface of cultures". Mahood says of these essays:

Wandering with Intent (2022) was the winner of the 2023 The Age Book of the Year Award for non-fiction.

Mahood is a regular contributor to the Griffith Review and The Monthly.