A/Prof Ronnie Scott is a novelist, comics scholar, studio leader in the Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing), and co-director of the non/fictionLab, a world-leading interdisciplinary research group. According to the Guardian, 'He writes frequently about intimacy and obligation and the ways that lives can turn on the briefest of encounters'.
His novel The Adversary (2020) was a book of the year in the Age and shortlisted for a Queensland Literary Award and the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. His novel Shirley (2023) was a Guardian book of the year and shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and the Voss Prize.
As a writer, he's a Montserrat Roig grantee, a fellow of Hong Kong Baptist University's International Writers Workshop, and a two-time MacDowell Fellow. His third novel, Letter to a Fortunate Ex, will be published by Penguin in 2026.
As a comics scholar, Ronnie is a Chief Investigator on Folio, a project about graphic storytellers funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Scheme. Within that project, Ronnie collects oral histories of Australian comics-makers, helps to build the comics holdings at the National Library of Australia, and is lead editor of the first book of essays about Australian comics, to be published by Palgrave in 2025.
In the BA (Creative Writing), Ronnie coordinates the capstone studio COMM2652 Creative Writing Project and is third-year Academic Advisor, focusing on helping students to develop rigorous, challenging writing practices and sustainable careers.
In the non/fictionLab, Ronnie supports academics to collaborate with artists, industry and community, fostering connections between creative experiments, critical research and social engagement. He also co-convenes Gutter Stars, an intervarsity comics collective that will exhibit, publish a book and run workshops in 2025 with Pink Ember Studio, Glom Press and the Emerging Writers' Festival.
Ronnie's current research is into fiction and novels; AIDS memory and 'post-crisis' representation; consciousness and the nonhuman (including animals and AI); Creative Writing as an interdisciplinary field that can be applied to social challenges; cultures of Australian comics and graphic storytelling; and innovative ways for interviews to inform creative projects and map oral histories.
Please contact him especially about supervising graduate projects in comics, queer creative practices, and the novel.
Key activities
Academic advisor, Third-year BA (Creative Writing)
Course coordinator, COMM2652 Creative Writing Project
Co-director, non/fictionLab research group
Co-convenor, Gutter Stars comics studies group
Supervisor interest areas
Contemporary fiction and nonfiction, voice and form
20th Century literature and literary modernism
Graphic narrative and graphic storytelling
Australian comics 1980-present
Queer storytelling
Creative writing and social change
Consciousness, the nonhuman, animals and AI
Programs
Research keywords
Fiction, Nonfiction, Comics, Graphic Storytelling, Creative Practice, Applied Creative Writing
Acknowledgement of Country
RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.