Jen Jewel Brown

Jen Jewel Brown is a Melbourne cross-genre author, journalist and editor. Before instigating, collecting and editing Lisa Bellear’s Aboriginal Country, she co-edited Shelton Lea’s final collection Nebuchadnezzar (Black Pepper, 2005) with Gig Ryan.

Jen won the 2006 Greater Dandenong Writing Awards Open Poetry Prize and the 2010 June Shenfield Poetry Award. Her poetry has appeared in Cordite, Going Down Swinging, Meanjin, Salt-Lick, The Age, Westerly and Best Australian Poems (Black Inc).

She worked as a volunteer publicist on Wrong Side of the Road (Ned Lander, 1981) but over decades of work in music, her high point was discovering, signing and helping develop Yothu Yindi as Mushroom A&R Manager.

Jen’s obituaries for Australian artists include Lisa Bellear (‘An inspiring, dynamic warrior woman’ aka ‘Warrior woman a beacon for Aborigines’, 2006); and Jimmy Little (‘Mellifluous-voiced Gentleman Jim charmed nation’, 2012). Jen has co-written a biography of Michael Hutchence with his sister Tina, coming out through Allen & Unwin in 2018.