Rosanne Hawke


Rosanne Hawke is an award-winning Australian author from Penola, South Australia who has written over 25 books for young adults and children. She teaches tertiary level Creative Writing at Tabor Adelaide. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.

Writing career

Hawke lives in a little old Cornish farmhouse near Kapunda, South Australia, and has spent significant time researching Cornish identity in Australian children's literature. She writes about culture, faith, relationships, displacement and belonging, music and cats.
Her first short story was published in the magazine of Moura State School, Queensland in 1967 when she was in grade 8. At 14 years, She moved back to South Australia and attended Gawler High School where she won an Arts Scholarship to complete Years 11 & 12. She started a romantic novel when she was 17 but burnt it later. It wasn't until Rosanne was working in the Middle East and Pakistan, teaching English as a Second Language and bringing up kids that she started to write seriously.
Rosanne was shortlisted for the Australian Aurealis Awards and was a winner in the Kanga Awards Focus List. Some of her best recognised books include Kelsey and the Quest of the Porcelain Doll, Across the Creek, and Taj and the Great Camel Trek. She has been awarded a Tabor Adelaide Award for Teaching Excellence, 2009 Australian Learning and Teaching Council, “Citation For Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning”, she won Carclew Fellowship at SA Writers Week 2006, is the recipient of the 2014 Nance Donkin Award, and is officially a Bard of Cornwall.
According to Bennett, Hawke pioneered multicultural approaches to writing for children. Her work as a teacher in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates may have contributed to this slant.

Honours