Scott, Kim

Kim Scott was born in Perth, Western Australia, a descendant of the Noongar people. He was educated in Albany and then attended Murdoch University. He has worked in a variety of positions, as a clerk, an audio-visual technician and an English teacher in Portugal. After teaching English for some time in urban, rural and remote secondary schools, including at an Aboriginal community in the north of Western Australia, Scott began researching his family history. This research provided the background for his first novel True Country (1993) and together with Benang: From the Heart (1999), these novels explore the problem of self-identity faced by light-skinned Aboriginal people and examine the government's assimilationist policies during the first decades of the twentieth century.

'Scott has published poetry, short stories and articles in a range of journals and anthologies. He has been a guest at many writers and Indigenous arts festivals in Australia, been a Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne, and was one of the guest speakers in the 2001 Century of Federation Alfred Deakin Lecture Series in Melbourne, Victoria. In 2001 he wrote the forewards for Untreated: Poems by Black Writers and Talking Straight: Publishing Aboriginal Writing and in 2004 he presented at 'Globalisation and Identities : A Literary Forum' in Melbourne.

He has worked extensively in education, and sat on a number of education and arts boards and committees at local, state and national levels, including the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board of the Australia Council and has been a member of the Wilomin Aboriginal Corporation.'

Scott is the nephew of Hazel Brown (q.v.) whose story he co-wrote in Kayang and Me. Source: www.ozco.gov.au/ (Sighted 11/05/2007)

In 2012 Professor Kim Scott was named the inaugural West Australian of the Year.