Overview
Background
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.
Availability
- Dr Tom Doig is:
- Not available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor of English Literature, University of Auckland
- Graduate Diploma of Creative Writing, University of Melbourne
- Bachelor (Honours) of English Literature, University of Melbourne
- Masters (Research) of Creative Writing, University of Melbourne
- Doctor of Philosophy of Journalism, Monash University
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.
Works
Search Professor Tom Doig’s works on UQ eSpace
Featured
2023
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.
Featured
2022
Other Outputs
The preppers next door
Doig, Tom (2022). The preppers next door. Auckland, New Zealand: New Zealand Geographic.
Featured
2020
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
Featured
2019
Other Outputs
Hazelwood
Doig, Tom (2019). Hazelwood. Melbourne, Australia: Penguin Random House Australia.
Featured
2015
Other Outputs
The coal face
Doig, Tom (2015). The coal face. North Sydney, NSW, Australia: Penguin Books Australia.
Featured
2013
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.
2024
Journal Article
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.
2024
Other Outputs
Billionaires are building bunkers and buying islands. But are they prepping for the apocalypse – or pioneering a new feudalism?
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
2024
Other Outputs
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.
2023
Other Outputs
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
2023
Other Outputs
THIS
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).
2023
Other Outputs
'Dear Valued Guest'
Doig, Tom (2023). 'Dear Valued Guest'. Count every breath: a climate anthology. (pp. 100-101) edited by Vinita Agrawal. Calcutta, India: Hawakal Publishers.
2022
Other Outputs
'Dear Valued Guest,'
Doig, Tom (2022). 'Dear Valued Guest,'. Stride Magazine (http://stridemagazine.blogspot.com/): Stride Magazine (Rupert Loydell).
2022
Other Outputs
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
2022
Conference Publication
Witnessing the climate crisis and children’s mental health: a framing analysis of international news media from 2019-2021
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.
2022
Book Chapter
Writing the climate crisis
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.
2022
Other Outputs
Living Underwater in Brisbane
Doig, Tom (2022). Living Underwater in Brisbane. Auckland, New Zealand: The Spinoff.
2021
Other Outputs
John Summers: ink stained from the beginning
Doig, Tom (2021, 07 20). John Summers: ink stained from the beginning The Spinoff
2021
Other Outputs
Despite major conservation efforts, populations of New Zealand’s iconic kiwi are more vulnerable than people realise
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
2021
Other Outputs
The Domestication of Disaster
Doig, Tom (2021). The Domestication of Disaster. Literary Journalism: The newsletter of the IALJS, 15 (1), 9-10.
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Tom Doig is:
- Not available for supervision
Supervision history
Current supervision
-
-
Doctor Philosophy
Cognitive conversations between creative practitioners and the FND community
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Melissa Dickson
-
Master Philosophy
"The Problem of Living"; and "Sense and Insensibility: Pain, Trauma and the Limits of First-Person Narrative in Creative Non-Fiction"
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Associate Professor Elizabeth Stephens
-
Doctor Philosophy
Metamorphosis: Where Fact Becomes Fiction
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Natalie Collie, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
-
Doctor Philosophy
The Realness of Unreal Things
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
Media
Enquiries
Contact Dr Tom Doig directly for media enquiries about:
- bunkers
- climate activists
- climate crisis
- disasters
- doomsday preppers
- preppers
- social movements
- societal collapse
- subcultures of imminent collapse
- survivalists
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