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 nonfiction 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
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.
2019
Other Outputs
something very old
Doig, Tom (2019). something very old. Cordite Poetry Review (92).
2019
Other Outputs
Sweet and sour pork lover
Tom Doig (2019). Sweet and sour pork lover. Melbourne, Australia: The Slow Canoe Press.
2018
Other Outputs
The Animal Road: Ecotourism in Southwest Cambodia
Doig, Tom (2018). The Animal Road: Ecotourism in Southwest Cambodia. Perth, Scotland: Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
2017
Journal Article
'Global Warming is a headf**k': using cultural journalism and oral history to engage with the lived experiences of climate change
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.
2016
Journal Article
When Jobs Leave Town
Doig, Tom (2016). When Jobs Leave Town. Big Issue Australia, 521, 30-33.
Supervision
Availability
- Dr Tom Doig is:
- Not available for supervision
Supervision history
Current supervision
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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
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Doctor Philosophy
Cognitive Conversations: Science-informed storytelling in the FND clinic
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Melissa Dickson
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Doctor Philosophy
The Realness of Unreal Things: A Model for Writing Speculative Fiction Memoir
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
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Doctor Philosophy
Metamorphosis: Where Fact Becomes Fiction
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Dr Natalie Collie, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
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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: A Model for Writing Speculative Fiction Memoir
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
-
Doctor Philosophy
The Realness of Unreal Things
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Kim Wilkins, Associate Professor Helen Marshall
-
Doctor Philosophy
An Internationalist Turn: Ecocritical Connections in Writing Climate Crisis from Australia and Beyond
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Emeritus Professor Joanne Tompkins, Associate Professor Stephen Carleton
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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