I’m a non-Indigenous writer, historian, and educator, and the author of two history-themed poetry collections: boots (UWA Publishing) and Second Fleet Baby (Fremantle Press). I’ve lectured in colonial and Indigenous history at La Trobe University and the University of Western Australia, and my widely-published research focuses on intersections between medicine, language, law, and race in colonial Victoria. Reflecting my passion for community-engaged and place-based ways of connecting with history, I’ve also designed various public walking tours and a digital Heritage exhibition about migrant life in 1890s Naarm (Melbourne).
My poetry engages themes of settler ancestry and colonialism, place and language, in/fertility, childbearing, and love. It appears in such places as Cordite Poetry, Mascara Review, Portside Review, What We Carry: Poetry on Childbearing and Australian Poetry Journal’s 2022 and 2024 Best of Australian Poems.
I’m currently writing a hybrid poetry and essay collection relating to the life of stone and moving from Naarm back to my home city, Ballarat.
Some nourishing practice-based workshops that combine my passion for history and poetry are coming up! Please contact me if you’d like to be notified of ticket release in advance.
Second Fleet Baby
Fremantle Press, 2023
Second Fleet Baby examines birth and motherhood, with a consciousness that spans centuries. This poetry draws on the energies of 18th Century English convict women, including Rhook’s own ancestors, to open raw questions of belonging. How might a settler reconcile the violence bound up with their role populating stolen land with the love and euphoria that can flow from parenthood? Intergenerational ties are traced through the soft weapons of the body, connecting the intimacies of nation-making with the politics of reproduction in lavishly personal ways. Through stories of childhood, of fertility, and of nurturing new life during a pandemic, the patriarchal weight of history is cast off and origins are pulled 'from the seabed to the surface'.
boots
UWA Publishing, 2020
The past lives in every step.
boots are here a symbol and a tool – a heel of feminine desire and a dirt-trodden shoe that cushions feet on paths to power and property, leaving trails of violence and pain. Memories jump and jar in these poems, loosening history from the grip of archives and footnotes to nourish the imagination, freeing me to speak back to my ancestors and the European men who co-created the edifices of 19th Century colonisation. boots looks in mirrors and across seas to dream big. At its restless heart, it draws history closer to my body.
Workshops on poetry and history
‘Where Poetry Meets History’, Naarm, for the Sonic Poetry Festival.
‘I enjoyed the workshop 'Where Poetry Meets History' so much. Nadia… generously shares her deep historical knowledge,
poetic eye and ear, passion for history and poetry, and cultural sensitivity. This tour reconnected me to my creative practice,
reminded me of the significance of place and walking to my writing, and inspired an idea for a new poem. Importantly, it
transformed the city I live in… into a place rich with history, stories and poetic potential.’
- Simone
‘Nadia’s depth of knowledge and passion for history makes this workshop a joy. I have so many ideas perculating.’
- Laura
‘Decolonial Poetry: Positionality, Form, and Intelligibility’ for the Western Australian Poets’ Inc. Emerging Poets Program.
‘Theme, Symbol, and Motif’ for the Perth Festival Authors After School Program.
‘The Art of Storytelling’ for various University History courses,.
Manuscript Assessments
I can help you to work through the ‘big picture’ of your poetry, fiction or non-fiction (or genre defying!) manuscript, as well as to enhance its style, form, and communicative power at the level of word, line, page, and whole work. My tailored assessments can help you to step back from your Manuscript, to massage its language to cohere and deepen its story and meanings, to gain clarity about the intent behind your work, and to prepare it for publication.
Working with Nadia, as she offered a manuscript assessment of a hybrid poetry/creative nonfiction collection in development, has been one of the most… fulfilling experiences of my writing life. Nadia offered me a detailed and constructive critique of my work, responding both to questions I had in the writing, and going beyond that to highlight things which arose for her, and which I had not previously considered. She… engaged with the manuscript on its own terms, and was wonderfully considerate of my emotional investment in the work. Best of all, she has left me feeling energised and excited to continue working on my MS. I cannot recommend her highly enough – her input has been incredibly valuable and deeply sustaining. Thank you, Nadia!!
- Dr. Catherine Noske, Author and Editor.
‘Nadia’s guidance has been instrumental in developing my appreciation of questions from answers in creative praxis. As she put it, her feedback is ‘suggestive, not prescriptive’—marked by challenging phrases like ‘I wonder if …?’ and ‘Or …?’ and ‘Can the poem …?’ . [We] discussed the ways of suspending a poem between those monkey bars—latching onto a known answer, then teasing the enigma of a piece out, flirting with all its possibilities.’
- Aditi Arun, Poet and Mentee.