Nicole Hayes
Author & Podcaster
Specialty Areas
Arts, Music, Literature, Entertainment, Feminist Policy and Politics, Women’s Affairs, Gender, Media and Communications, Mentoring, Sexuality, Sport and Recreation
About Me
Nicole Hayes is an award winning author and writing instructor. Her books include Young Adult novels, The Whole of My World (Random House, 2013), One True Thing (Random House, 2015) — winner of the Children’s Peace Literature Award, CBCA Notable Book, and shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Literary Award, WA Young Readers Book Awards and YABBA Awards — and her recent release, A Shadow’s Breath (Penguin Random House, 2017), which was the recipient of a Creative Victoria grant for new work in 2016.
Last year she co-edited an anthology of AFL stories by writers and thinkers from the margins called From the Outer: Footy Like You’ve Never Heard It (Black Inc 2016, with Alicia Sometimes). Alicia and Nicole collaborated on a children’s book about women’s AFL, A Footy Girl’s Guide to the Stars of 2017 (Nero Books, 2017), the first book to celebrate the AFLW. She has had opinion pieces, reviews, fiction and essays published in the The Guardian, Griffith Review, Newtown Review of Books, NSW Write, Writers Victoria, and The Wheeler Centre, The Lifted Brow and a (to be published) Penguin Books anthology. Previous awards for her writing include Varuna editorial mentorships for different novels in 2003 and the 2001, and in 2009 she was twice awarded development funding for a feature film script by Film Victoria.
She is co-presenter and co-producer of the groundbreaking Outer Sanctum podcast (now at the ABC), the first all-female AFL show which was responsible for breaking the Caroline Wilson / Eddie McGuire controversy last year, and continues to play a key role in helping change the narrative around football to create a more inclusive and diverse space. Nicole regularly speaks about writing, sport, and gender, and has taught creative writing at various organisations over the years, including Australian Writers Centre, Writers Victoria and University of Melbourne.
