Photo by Lauren Connelly (2019)
Kylie Maslen is a writer and critic living on Country stolen from the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains.
Kylie’s first book – SHOW ME WHERE IT HURTS: LIVING WITH INVISIBLE ILLNESS – was shortlisted for the 2021 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in non-fiction, named in Guardian Australia’s ’20 best Australian books of 2020’, named a Saturday Paper’s ‘Best new talent of 2020’, included in bookseller Readings’ ‘Most talked about books of 2020’ and declared ‘a Millennial masterpiece’ by Columbia University’s Intima Journal of Narrative Medicine. It has received praise in reviews by Australian Book Review, Books+Publishing, Sydney Review of Books, Sydney Morning Herald and Meanjin, among others.
They are a contributor to Melbourne International Film Festival’s MELBOURNE ON FILM: CINEMA THAT DEFINES OUR CITY, published by Black Inc. in August 2022. Other contributors include Christos Tsiolkas, Sarah Krasnostein and Martin Flanagan.
Kylie’s cultural criticism, social commentary and critical essays have appeared in the Guardian, Meanjin, InDaily, Adelaide Review, Crikey, Money Magazine, The Shot, Kill Your Darlings and Junkee, among other outlets.
In 2018 Kylie was the recipient of the New Critics Award by Kill Your Darlings, and their essay ‘I’m trying to tell you I’m not okay’ was longlisted for The Lifted Brow & RMIT non/fictionLab Prize for Experimental Non-fiction. Kylie has gratefully received project funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts South Australia and the Copyright Agency.
Amongst their advocacy work, Kylie is a consumer (lived experience) advocate on the External Strategic Advisory Board for Flinders University’s Caring Future Institute.