Archie Weller

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Archie Weller (born July 13, 1957) is an Australian award winning writer of novels, short stories and screen plays.

Weller was born in Cranbrook, Western Australia, and grew up on a farm called Woonenup in the South west of that state.[1]

Weller states he wrote his first book, The Day of the Dog, "within a period of six weeks in a spirit of anger after his release from Broome jail for what he regarded as a wrongful conviction".[2] It won the 1980 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, the 1982 Prose Fiction award in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards,[3] and was made into a film entitled Blackfellas, which won two AFI Awards in 1993.[4] Weller's second novel Land of the Golden Clouds was published in 1998.

"Herbie", a short story in the collection Going Home, is about a boy named Davey who kills an aboriginal boy and though he is cruel and guilty, the boy sympathises with Herbie's mother and knows that he has lost his innocence.[5] In this story he portrays a boy who is white and who has no empathy towards Herbie, an indigenous boy. It portrays bullying and brutal behaviour in a schoolyard with fatal consequences.

The script Confessions of a Headhunter, which Weller co-wrote with Sally Riley, won the an award in the 2001 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, the Cinema Nova Award and the 2000 Australian Film Institute Awards for Best Short Fiction Film,[6] [7] and the 2001 Film Critics Circle of Australia award for Best Short Film.[8]

His mother was a journalist and his father was a farmer. As a young child Weller was encouraged by his grandfather to write.[2]

Contents

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Novels

  • Day of the Dog (Allen & Unwin, 1981)
  • Land Of The Golden Clouds (Allen & Unwin, 1998)

[edit] Short stories

  • Going Home: Stories (Allen & Unwin, 1986)Review
  • Pension Day
  • Dead Dingo
  • Johnny Blue
  • Stolen Car
  • Sandcastles
  • Herbie

[edit] Drama & screenplays

  • Nidjera: Children Crying Softly Together: A Play Exploring The Emotions Of A Modern Day Koori Family (1990)
  • Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, with Rima Tamou (1999)[9]
  • Confessions of a Headhunter, with Sally Riley (2000)[7]

[edit] Edited

  • Us Fellas: An Anthology Of Aboriginal Writing, with Colleen Glass (Perth: Artlook, 1987)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Perth International Arts Festival. State Library of Western Australia. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
  2. ^ a b Weller, Archie. Austlit. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  3. ^ Western Australian Premier's Book Awards - 1982 Winners. State Library of Western Australia. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  4. ^ Awards for Day of the Dog. Imdb. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  5. ^ Lewis, John (22 August 2001), “Going Home”, The Age Education, <http://www.education.theage.com.au/pagedetail.asp?intpageid=106&strsection=students&intsectionid=3> 
  6. ^ AFI Award Winners Non-feature Categories 1958-2007. Australian Film Institute. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  7. ^ a b Confessions of a Headhunter. Australian Screen. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  8. ^ Awards for Confessions of a Head Hunter. Imdb. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.
  9. ^ Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. Australian Screen. Retrieved on 2008-04-24.

[edit] References


Persondata
NAME Weller, Archie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Irving Kirkwood, Kirk Weller, Raymond Chee
SHORT DESCRIPTION Contemporary Indigenous Australian novelist
DATE OF BIRTH July 13, 1857
PLACE OF BIRTH Western Australia, Australia
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH ya mum


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