Meme McDonald

Meme McDonald is a graduate of Victoria College of the Arts Drama School. She began her career as a theatre and festival director, specialising in the creation of large-scale outdoor performance events. Since then she has worked as a writing, photography and, most recently, a film projects.

Meme has written a number of award-winning books with the Aboriginal performer Boori Pryor. My Girragundji won the CBC Book of the Year Award for Younger Readers. The Binna Binna Man won three major awards at the 2000 NSW Premier's Awards, including Book of the Year - a prize which had never before been awarded to a children's book. Njunjul the Sun, the final book in this trio, which is based on true stories from Boori's life and illustrated by Meme's photographs, won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Younger Readers in November 2002.

A book for young readers, The Way of the Birds was adapted for television as an animation in 2000. Put Your Whole Self In won the N.S.W. State Literary Award for non-fiction in the 1993 and the Braille and Talking Book Award in the same year. An exhibition of photographs from the book was shown at four separate venues on the eastern coast.

Her latest novel, Love Like Water, was published by Allen & Unwin in 2007.

Meme lives in Melbourne.

Website: http://www.mememcdonald.com/

Books by Meme McDonald

• 

  Put Your Whole Self In

  Meme McDonald took her camera to the Melbourne City Baths and her photographer's eye focused on the colour and movement of a circle of older women, splashing and laughing in the pool. This was her first meeting with the Northcote Self-help Hydrotherapy & Massage group.

  The stories of these women, in and away from the pool, are told with tenderness and simplicity. Provocative opinions on youth, marriage and motherhood, women at work and at home, love and the loss of it, life and death, are shared with earthy humour, courage and dignity.

  New South Wales Literary Award, non-fiction, 1993
  Braille and Talking Book Award, 1993

  Details
• 

  The Way of the Birds

  Travel the way of the birds, over islands and oceans, following the wetlands across the world, as child and bird together make their precarious journey towards maturity.

  Meme McDonald's evocative story lets you look through the eyes of a bird, to see with a new sense of wonder.

  Adapted as an animation, directed by Sarah Watts, 2000
  Adapted as on-line documentary, 2002

  Details
• 

  Sister Chick

  Eva goes on a magical flight across the world with Sister Chick, and when she returns she transforms a swampy rubbish dump into a marshland so the waderbirds will have a feeding ground.

  With illustrations from the Sarah Watts' animation

  Details
• 

  Flytrap

  Nancy wants so much to be the centre of attention at school that she makes up a story – a wish, really. But with the help of stories from both sides of her family – white Australian and Aboriginal – she learns something about what is true for her, and what she herself has to offer.

  Notable Book, 2003 CBCA Awards

  Details
• 

  Love Like Water

  Love Like Water is a bold, confronting book about friendship, love, sex and identity at the heart of Australia, where black and white, bush and city collide.

  Cathy arrives in Alice Springs from cattle country, looking for a new way to live. But new is a serious challenge for a girl who's used to being measured by her actions, not her feelings. Feelings are slippery, like water. Hard to hold onto.

  Jay is working for the local radio station, far from his own saltwater people, wary of this no-water country. He's searching for something, trying to survive.

  Margie is a wild city girl, up for a good time, confronted by a world she's never known and a friend she can't always understand.

  When lives collide at the heart of the country, no one stays unchanged.

  Details
• 

  Maybe Tomorrow

  Stunning new anniversary edition out now!

  The other day this little one asked me, ‘When did you start being an Aborigine, and how old were you when you started that?’ Like it was a career path or something. I just cracked up laughing.

  Boori Monty Pryor’s career path has taken him from the Aboriginal fringe camps of his birth to the catwalk, the basketball court, the DJ console, and now to performance and storytelling around the country. With writer and photographer Meme McDonald, Boori leads you along the paths he has travelled, pausing to meet his family and friends, while sharing the story of his life his pain and his hopes, with humour and compassion.

  Special commendation, 1998 Human Rights Awards
  Shortlisted, 1999 CBCA Awards

  Details
• 

  My Girragundji

  The story of an Aboriginal boy whose house is invaded by a Hairyman – a spirit the old people call a Quinkin. When a little green tree frog lands on his windowsill, he knows she has been sent by the ancestors to help him face his fears.

  Winner, Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Award, Younger Readers, 1999
  Shortlisted, 1999 Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards

  Details
• 

  The Binna Binna Man

  The powerful story of an Aboriginal teenage boy who is caught between the attractions of city life and the ways of his people. After a terrifying encounter with the Binna Binna man he knows what he must do in order to be true to himself.

  Winner of three New South Wales Premier’s Awards:
  Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature
  Ethnic Affairs Commission Award, 2000
  Book of the Year, New South Wales Ministry for the Arts, 2000

  Winner, Book of the Year Award, 2000 TDK Audio Book Awards

  Details
• 

  Njunjul the Sun

  A 16-year-old Aboriginal boy leaves his family and home for the big city, and as he struggles to make sense of his experience he realises that he must have the knowledge of his own people and culture in order to know who he is, and to find his direction.

  Winner, Young Adult Fiction, 2002 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
  Commended, 2006 Kate Challis RAKA Award

  Details