Lecturer in Creative Writing
Overview
Dr Tom Doig is a creative nonfiction author, investigative journalist and scholar. Tom was the recipient of the 2023 CLNZ-NZSA Writer's Award for his work on prepper subcultures in Aotearoa New Zealand. He has written two books about the unprecedented 2014 Hazelwood mine fire disaster: Hazelwood (Penguin Random House, 2020) and The Coal Face (Penguin Books Australia, 2015). Hazelwood was a finalist for the 2020 Walkley Book Award, Journalism and the 2021 Ned Kelly Awards, Best True Crime and Highly Commended in the 2020 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, Non-Fiction. The Coal Face was joint winner of the 2015 Oral History Victoria Education Innovation Award. Dr Doig has also written a humorous travel memoir, Mörön to Mörön: Two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure (Allen & Unwin, 2013). He is the contributing editor of the interdisciplinary collection Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa (Bridget Williams Books, 2020).
Dr Doig teaches creative non-fiction and poetry.
As a scholar, Dr Doig is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to the accelerating climate crisis, with a focus on the cultural, social and psychological aspects of climate breakdown. He is currently researching a new book: We Are All Preppers Now (forthcoming with Scribe Publications), documenting survivalists, doomsday preppers, climate activists and other subcultures of imminent collapse around the world.
Research Impacts
Doig'sThe Coal Face (2015) put pressure on the Victorian Labor government to reopen the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry (2015-16), to investigate the public health harms (illness and death) caused by the 2014 Hazelwood mine fire. Information in The Coal Face was cited by prosecuting lawyers in the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry, and by prosecuting lawyers for injured mine worker David Briggs in his succesful case against WorkCover Victoria. The reopened Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry contributed to the early closure of Hazelwood Power Station in 2017, at that time the most-polluting coal plant in the OECD.
Qualifications
- Doctor of Philosophy of Journalism, Monash University
- Masters (Research) of Creative Writing, University of Melbourne
- Bachelor (Honours) of English Literature, University of Melbourne
- Graduate Diploma of Creative Writing, University of Melbourne
- Bachelor of English Literature, University of Auckland
Publications
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Other Outputs: Friday essay: if the world’s systems are ‘already cracking’ due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?
Doig, Tom (2023). Friday essay: if the world’s systems are ‘already cracking’ due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Conversation Media Group.
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Other Outputs: The preppers next door
Doig, Tom (2022). The preppers next door. Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Geographic.
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Book: Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa
Doig, Tom ed. (2020). Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. doi: 10.7810/9781988587530
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Other Outputs: Hazelwood
Doig, Tom (2019). Hazelwood. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Random House Australia.
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Other Outputs: The coal face
Doig, Tom (2015). The coal face. North Sydney, NSW, Australia: Penguin Books Australia.
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Other Outputs: Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure
Doig, Tom (2013). Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure. Crow Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Supervision
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"The Problem of Living"; and "Sense and Insensibility: Pain, Trauma and the Limits of First-Person Narrative in Creative Non-Fiction"
Master Philosophy
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Chasing the Light
Doctor Philosophy
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Cognitive conversations between creative practitioners and the FND community
Doctor Philosophy
Publications
Featured Publications
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Doig, Tom (2023). Friday essay: if the world’s systems are ‘already cracking’ due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Conversation Media Group.
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Doig, Tom (2022). The preppers next door. Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Geographic.
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Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa
Doig, Tom ed. (2020). Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. doi: 10.7810/9781988587530
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Doig, Tom (2019). Hazelwood. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Random House Australia.
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Doig, Tom (2015). The coal face. North Sydney, NSW, Australia: Penguin Books Australia.
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Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure
Doig, Tom (2013). Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure. Crow Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
Book
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Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa
Doig, Tom ed. (2020). Living with the Climate Crisis: Voices from Aotearoa. Wellington, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books. doi: 10.7810/9781988587530
Book Chapter
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Horrocks, Ingrid and Doig, Tom (2022). Writing the climate crisis. Tū Rangaranga: rights, responsibilities and global citizenship in Aotearoa New Zealand. (pp. 161-179) edited by Sharon McLennan, Margaret Forster, Rand Hazou, David Littlewood and Carol Neill. Auckland, New Zealand: Massey University Press.
Journal Article
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Ten years on from Hazelwood: last decade’s second-worst disaster
Doig, Tom (2024). Ten years on from Hazelwood: last decade’s second-worst disaster. Meanjin, 83 (1), 95-108.
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Doig, Tom (2017). 'Global Warming is a headf**k': using cultural journalism and oral history to engage with the lived experiences of climate change. Swamphen, 6, 39-50.
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Doig, Tom (2016). When Jobs Leave Town. Big Issue Australia, 521, 30-33. doi: 10.3316/ielapa.354975179665565
Conference Publication
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Murray, Linda, Breheny, Mary, Doig, Tom , Mooney, Maureen, Erueti, Bevan, Severinsen, Christina and Shanley, James (2022). Witnessing the climate crisis and children’s mental health: a framing analysis of international news media from 2019-2021. Population Health Congress, Adelaide, SA, Australia, 21-23 September 2022.
Other Outputs
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Guinness, Katherine, Bollmer, Grant and Doig, Tom (2024, 03 01). Billionaires are building bunkers and buying islands. But are they prepping for the apocalypse – or pioneering a new feudalism? The Conversation
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Preppers and survivalism in the AustLit Database
Doig, Tom, Millar, Andrew, Mills, Catriona and Nolan, Maggie (2024). Preppers and survivalism in the AustLit Database. St Lucia, QLD Australia: AustLit.
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Best books of 2023: our experts share the books that have stayed with them
Webb, Jen, Howard, Alexander, Gorman, Alice, Clark, Anna, Rhodes, Carl, Carol Lefevre, Dennis Altman, Edwina Preston, Heidi Norman, Hugh Breakey, Novitz, Julian, van Loon, Julienne, Ricketson, Matthew, Haslam, Nick, Davis, Oscar, Mares, Peter, Latty, Tanya, Doig, Tom, Hughes-d'Aeth, Tony and Sun, Wanning (2023, 12 05). Best books of 2023: our experts share the books that have stayed with them The Conversation
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Doig, Tom (2023). Friday essay: if the world’s systems are ‘already cracking’ due to climate change, is there a post-doom silver lining?. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Conversation Media Group.
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Namana, Priya, Kapuscinski-Evans, Jess, Manderson-Galvin, Kerith, Park, Minsun, Homsey, Jonathan, Sifis, Eva, Dunn, Trevor, Mcmahon, Theo, Miles, Sean, Chapple, Aliki, Wang, Yuyu, Haynes, Jon, Paolini, Patrizia, Jadé Maravala, Persis, Parr, Nick, Grant, Ben, Doig, Tom, Spearim, Maurial, Kelly, Sean and Woods, David (2023). THIS. Melbourne, VIC, Australia: Rising Festival (Melbourne).
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Doig, Tom (2023). 'Dear Valued Guest'. Count every breath: a climate anthology. (pp. 100-101) edited by Vinita Agrawal. Calcutta, India: Hawakal Publishers.
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Doig, Tom (2022). 'Dear Valued Guest,'. Stride Magazine (http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/): Stride Magazine (Rupert Loydell).
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Doig, Tom (2022). The preppers next door. Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Geographic.
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Doomsday bunkers, Mars and ‘The Mindset’: the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world
Doig, Tom (2022, 10 04). Doomsday bunkers, Mars and ‘The Mindset’: the tech bros trying to outsmart the end of the world The Conversation
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Doig, Tom (2022). Living Underwater in Brisbane. Auckland, New Zealand: The Spinoff.
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John Summers: ink stained from the beginning
Doig, Tom (2021, 07 20). John Summers: ink stained from the beginning The Spinoff
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Castro, Isabel, Gibb, Gillian, Undin, Malin and Doig, Tom (2021, 05 13). Despite major conservation efforts, populations of New Zealand’s iconic kiwi are more vulnerable than people realise The Conversation
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Doig, Tom (2021). The Domestication of Disaster. Literary Journalism: The newsletter of the IALJS, 15 (1), 9-10.
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Doig, Tom (2019). something very old. Cordite Poetry Review (92).
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Tom Doig (2019). Sweet and sour pork lover. Melbourne, Australia: The Slow Canoe Press.
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Doig, Tom (2019). Hazelwood. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Random House Australia.
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The Animal Road: Ecotourism in Southwest Cambodia
Doig, Tom (2018). The Animal Road: Ecotourism in Southwest Cambodia. Perth, Scotland: Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
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Doig, Tom (2015). The coal face. North Sydney, NSW, Australia: Penguin Books Australia.
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Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure
Doig, Tom (2013). Mörön to Mörön: two men, two bikes, one Mongolian misadventure. Crow Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
PhD and MPhil Supervision
Note for students: Dr Tom Doig is not currently available to take on new students.
Current Supervision
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"The Problem of Living"; and "Sense and Insensibility: Pain, Trauma and the Limits of First-Person Narrative in Creative Non-Fiction"
Master Philosophy — Principal Advisor
Other advisors:
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Chasing the Light
Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor
Other advisors:
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Cognitive conversations between creative practitioners and the FND community
Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor
Other advisors:
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Metamorphosis: Where Fact Becomes Fiction
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
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Narrative Techniques in Concept Albums
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
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The Realness of Unreal Things
Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor
Other advisors:
