Theatre Experience
Playwright for the Yirra Yaakin Playwrighting Festival 2023 – developed play ‘Downstream’ (Subiaco Arts Centre)

Adelaide Fringe Festival 2024 – writer and producer for play ‘Trail’s End’ (Goodwood Theatre & Studios; Domain Theatre, Marion Cultural Centre)

Community theatre – chorus member for shows Hairspray, Les Misérables, Sweeney Todd (Ashfield Musical Society), Pirates of Penzance (Chatswood Musical Society) and portrayed ‘Florinda’ in Into the Woods (Balmain Musical Society).

Publications

• My Father’s Shadow Magabala Books
• Learning from Loving Country, Traditional Aboriginal approaches to climate change impact mitigation, Adapt NSW, 2023
• ‘Viola’s End’, Emerging Writers’ Festival Blog, September 2021.
• ‘Writing in Black’, Journal – Centre for Stories, June 2020.
• ‘My Father’s Shadow: Jannali Jones on the importance of telling Indigenous stories’, Booktopia Guest Blog, 22 August 2019
• ‘Undulating’, Australian Poetry Journal, Volume 7: Issue 1, Australia, 2017.
• ‘Past Tense’, Westerly, Edition 61:1, Western Australia, 2016.
• ‘Hiroko’, Peril Magazine, Edition 22 – Like Black on Rice, Australia, 2015.
• ‘The Pied Piper’s Daughter’, Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 8: Issue 2, Australia, 2013.
• ‘Blancamorphosis’ (reprint), New Reflections, Aschehoug Publishing, Norway, 2013.
• ‘Heartprints’, SWAMP, Issue 12, Online, 2013.
• ‘Blancamorphosis’, Overland, 208 Spring, Sydney, 2012.
• ‘Passing Footprints’, Southerly, Vol 7 No.2, Sydney, 2011.
• ‘The Morning After’, FEAST Festival 2010 Short Writing Competition Prize Winners, FEAST, Online, 2010.
• ‘The Highest Branch’, Etchings Indigenous: Black and Sexy, Elsternwick, Victoria, Illura Press, 2010.
• ‘Dreaming Pool’, Etchings Indigenous: Black and Sexy, Elsternwick, Victoria, Illura Press, 2010.

Awards
SA Writers First Nations Varuna Fellowship 2024
First Nations Fellowship, JM Coetzee Centre, University of Adelaide 2023
Shortlisted for the 2023 Deep Creek Residency
2022 Varuna Residential Fellowship
First Nations Varuna Fellowship 2021
Shortlisted for the 2020 Daisy Utemorrah Award
Shortlisted for the 2019 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing
Winner 2015 black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship, State Library of Queensland.
Nakata Brophy Award – Runner Up, Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 2015.
Yarramundi Higher Degree Research Scholarship, University of Western Sydney, 2014.
Australian Indigenous Creators Scholarship 2013, Magabala Books.
Katharine Susannah Prichard Speculative Fiction Awards 2012 – High Commendation.
Young Writer-in-Residence 2011, Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre, Perth.
Dean’s Award for Outstanding Achievement 2011 (Master of Arts in Creative Writing), Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney.
Lindsay Croft Postgraduate Memorial Scholarship 2010 (merit-based scholarship for Master of Arts in Creative Writing), Jumbunna IHL, University of Technology, Sydney.
FEAST Festival 2010 Short Writing Competition – High Commendation.
Sydney Eisteddfod 2005 – Original Work: Short Story – High Commendation.
CV

Education
Master of Arts in Creative Writing, University of Technology, Sydney.
Graduate Certificate in Editing and Publishing, University of Technology, Sydney.
Shut Up and Write Indigenous Workshop, AFTRS
AFTRS NSW/ACT Talent Camp 2019
Writing for Television Online Course, AFTRS
Research for Writers course, Swinburne University

Other Experience
Board appointment: Aboriginal Arts & Culture Artform Board, Create NSW 2021-present
Reader for the 2021 Richell Prize for Emerging Writers
CATSINaM Cultural Awareness Training (scriptwriter), 2020
Board appointment: Literary Review Board, Australia Council for the Arts 2019
Staff Profiles, NITV website, 2015-16.
Editor – Spilt Milk Magazine, Issues 1 & 2, Sydney, 2015.
‘Sister’, multimedia artwork, finalist in the NSW Parliament Aboriginal Art Prize 2013
‘Gone Again’, short story included in artwork for In the Night Garden, Sydney Fringe Festival 2013.
Paper: ‘Indigenous Australian Cultural Protocols and Post-Determination Literature’ presented at the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies, Fort Worth, Texas, USA, 2011.
Paper: ‘Finding Home – Identity Bonds through Indigenous Literature’ presented at the Republic of Letters, Sydney, 2011.

Alexis West, a Birra Gubba, Wakka Wakka, South Sea Islander and Caucasian woman. A mother, writer, director, collaborator and performer in life, film, theatre, poetry, dance, weirdness and events. Written, collaborated, performed and directed works with No Strings Attached Theatre of Disability, Karrikarinya Theatre Collective, Kurruru Youth Arts, State Theatre Company South Australia, Yirra Yaakin, Act Now Theatre Company, Jute Theatre, Illbijerri Theatre, Slingsby Theatre Company, Theatre Republic, Hit Productions, Tjaratjura Dance Theatre and A Daylight Connection.

Alexis has presented and shared stories for NITVs ‘Around the Traps’ on SBS-NITV. Written and directed short documentaries.

She has been published in ‘Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia’, ‘Mindshare’, ‘Ora Nui’, ‘Our Mob’ and ‘Spirit Festival Catalogues’ and translated into Polish for ‘Poetiks’, ‘The Rock Remains’ First Nations SA Anthology. Alexis works with Act Now Theatre creating, performing and working as a facilitator, curator and mentor for the First Nations Pathway Program. She has worked as a dramaturg, collaborator, performer and mentor. Passionate about storytelling on any platform, creating with kindred spirits, considering ways to inspire and create pathways and opportunities for others. Alexis’ most recent tour was with Hit Productions ‘The Sunshine Club’ by Wesley Enoch.