Ruby's Web

Ruby is starting year 7 at a new school.

Her cousin Amber used to be her best friend, but she has started hanging out with the cool kids and pretends she doesn t know Ruby anymore. Ruby dreads school every day. At the same time, the whole country is also debating the referendum for a First Nations Voice to Parliament, and Ruby is facing more and more nasty comments online from her classmates. The gap between the internet and real life is getting thinner and thinner.

Ruby's Web is about how to seek help when dealing with online bullying and racism, the connections that the internet makes possible, and the power of using your voice.

About the Author

Ellen van Neerven (they/them) is an award-winning author, editor and educator of Mununjali and Dutch heritage. Ellen s first book, Heat and Light (UQP, 2014), a novel-in-stories, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Their first poetry collection Comfort Food (UQP, 2016) won the Tina Kane Emergent Award and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize. Throat (UQP, 2020) was the recipient of Book of the Year, the Kenneth Slessor Prize and the Multicultural Award at 2021 NSW Literary Awards and the inaugural Quentin Bryce Award.

Personal Score: Sport, Culture, Identity (UQP, 2023), a book that weaves history, memoir, journalism and poetry, received the Victorian Premier s Literary Award for Non Fiction and is forthcoming in North America in April 2024 through Two Dollar Radio. They are the editor of three collections, including the recent Homeland Calling: Words from a New Generation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voices and Unlimited Futures with Rafeif Ismail.