Icebreaking her way to Antarctic writing
November 4, 2011 in Art, National, Writing
UWS researcher and Doctor of Creative Arts candidate Jesse Blackadder has been awarded the Australian Antarctic Arts Fellowship.
Blackadder, who is a candidate with the Writing & Society Group, left Hobart yesterday to travel to Antarctica on the Australian Antarctic Division icebreaker Aurora Australis. She will visit Australia's Davis station before returning in early December.
Ms Blackadder has been writing for 20 years with a focus on the environment and sustainability. She has written two novels, The Raven's Heart (Fourth Estate 2011) and After the Party (Hardie Grant, 2005).
Blackadder will research several projects during her time in Antartica, including a novel she is penning about Ingrid Christensen who was the first woman to see the continent in 1931.
The novel will provide a glimpse into what it was like for a woman in the 1930s on a male dominated whaling ship and will also sketch out the devastation of the whale populations in the Southern Ocean at the time.
"Visiting Antarctica as part of the Antarctic Division's working team of scientists and support staff is a unique opportunity and I'm thrilled to have been chosen."
She is keeping a blog of her voyage at http://www.jesseblackadder.me
