Madelaine Dickie loves to write, loves to surf and loves fishing with her hundred-pound handline. In 2022, she took off on an eight-month surf drift through Mexico with her husband and eighteen-month-old son. They had a pistachio-coloured Nissan. The car’s transmission blew just shy of a mountain pass boobytrapped with bandits. A week later it caught fire at a border crossing.

When Madelaine takes a break from living dangerously you can find her at the desk, writing. Her debut novel Troppo won the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award and was shortlisted in the Dobbie Literary Awards and for a Barbara Jefferis Award. Her second novel Red Can Origami was written with the assistance of an Asialink Arts Residency at Youkobo Art Space in Japan. Some People Want to Shoot Me, co-authored with Nyikina leader Wayne Bergmann, was shortlisted for nonfiction book of the year in the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2025.

In addition to writing novels and non-fiction, Madelaine has spent the last 13 years working for Traditional Owner-led organisations in the Kimberley and Arnhem Land across the fields of education, native title, law and culture, environmental management, Aboriginal business development, climate change mitigation and youth justice. She trained as a journalist, but now runs her own communications business, helping organisations with grant writing and acquittal, communications, social media management, policy and procedure development, reporting, speech writing, web design and graphic design. Her current clients include the Kimberley Aboriginal Law and Culture Centre, Broome Youth and Families Hub, Mount Pierre Aboriginal Pastoral Station and Homeland School Company. She has served as the editor-in-chief of National Indigenous Times newspaper and is the current Treasurer of The Skill Engineer, a social enterprise creating bold opportunities for young people.

Madelaine lives on Western Australia’s muscly, grey, and shark-spooked Southern Ocean.

Awards, funding and residencies

Some People Want to Shoot Me shortlisted in the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, 2025

‘We never drive at night’ published in the international surf publication The Surfers’ Journal, 2024.

‘We never drive at night’ longlisted in the Overland Neilma Sidney Short Story Prize, 2022

Shortlisted for a Western Australian Writer’s Fellowship in the 2020 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, 2021

Winner of an Australian Society of Authors (ASA) mentorship, 2021

Troppo longlisted for Queensland Writers Centre’s Adaptable, 2021

Shortlisted for a Hazel Rowley Fellowship, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020

Recipient of a Neilma Sidney Travelling Scholarship, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020

Recipient of funding from Regional Arts WA, Some People Want to Shoot Me, 2020

Recipient of WA Culture and the Arts funding and a Copyright Agency Ignite grant to attend a residency at Arquetopia International Artists Residency in San Pablo Etla, Mexico, Lines to the Horizon, 2019

Shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier’s Literary Awards Fellowship, 2019

Troppo shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award, 2018

Troppo shortlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award, 2018

Recipient of a Tokyo-based AsiaLink Arts Residency, Red Can Origami, 2017

Winner of the City of Fremantle Hungerford Award, Troppo, 2014

Shortlisted for the Robert Hope Memorial Prize, 2012

Recipient of a Prime Minister’s Australia Asia Endeavour Award, 2011

Winner of the Illawarra Mercury Journalism Prize, 2011

Winner of the Nicholas Pounder Prize, 2009

Education and Training

Australian Institute of Community Directors Member, 2025

Master of Philosophy (Media, Culture and Creative Arts), Curtin University, 2024 -

Diploma in Modern Languages with a Specialisation in Spanish, Macquarie University, 2023

Bachelor of Journalism (Distinction), University of Wollongong, 2012

Bachelor of Creative Arts (Distinction), University of Wollongong, 2012

Certificate IV in Disability Work, Essentra Training, 2007.