Rebecca Giggs is an author and essayist. Her first book is Fathoms: The World in the Whale.
In the US Fathoms was awarded the prestigious 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. The book also listed as a finalist in the Kirkus Prize and the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. In Australia, Fathoms won the 2020 Mark and Evette Moran Nib Prize for Literature, the Royal Zoological Society's Whitley Award for Popular Zoology, and the Western Australian Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer. Fathoms was additionally shortlisted for the 2021 Stella Prize — Australia's most notable literary award for writing by women and non-binary authors — and, in the UK, the book was distinguished as 'Highly Commended' in the shortlist for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation.
Rebecca's nonfiction essays have been shortlisted for the Australian Book Review Calibre Prize and the Woollahra Digital Literary Award; a number of these works are currently taught in universities around Australia. Rebecca's writing has been translated into Korean, Italian, Slovakian, Spanish, Finnish, Mandarin and Norwegian. Rebecca has been a recipient of writing fellowships hosted by organisations including the Rachel Carson Centre for Environment and Society (Munich); the Mick Dark Residency at Varuna, the National Writing House (New South Wales); Bundanon; and the AsiaLink Foundation (Tokyo and Kyoto). She lives in Australia.
MEDIA BIO
Image Credit: Leanne Dixon, 2020
EVENTS
2022
'Fathoms' short-listed for the 2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature
2021
'Fathoms' AWARDED the ALA 2021 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction
'Fathoms' short-listed for the 2021 Stella Prize
'Fathoms' a finalist for the 2021 PEN / E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
'Fathoms' Highly Commended in the shortlist for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Writing on Global Conservation
'Soundings', an excerpt from 'Fathoms' short-listed for the 2021 UNSW Press Bragg Prize for Science Writing
2020
'Fathoms' AWARDED the 2020 Mark & Evette Moran Nib Literary Award, for excellence in research and nonfiction writing
'Fathoms' AWARDED the 2020 Royal Zoological Society's Whitley Award for Popular Zoology
'Fathoms' AWARDED the 2020 WA Premier's Prize for an Emerging Writer
'Fathoms' a finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction
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