Who is Tineke?

Tineke Van der Eecken is a Belgian-born Fremantle (Western Australia) based criminologist, artist and writer. She is a published author of 'Café d'Afrique: a Personal Discovery', Traverse and other creative non-fiction and travel writing, and poetry.

Born in 1967 in Sint-Niklaas (Flanders, Belgium), Tineke grew up with a healthy obsession with food and a mother, Nelly Maes, who is known for her active role in Flemish and European politics. The influence of her mother's activism for multi-linguism, her own background as a Criminologist, and her curiosity for people's thinking and other cultures made her travel the world in many different capacities, from UN-staff member to investigative journalist to project manager and small business entrepreneur. She has lived and worked in many countries, including Burundi, Zambia and Australia and continued to travel to remote parts of the world such as Papua New Guinea, Easter Island and Madagascar. The family, including Hannah (23) and Toto (20), and their dog 'Moose' live in Fremantle, Western Australia.

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Her self-inflicted research includes reading, investigating and writing about the overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in West Australian prisons, corruption in Zambia under Frederick Chiluba and the links to Belgium. She has published about these topics in MO* magazine and New Internationalist. 

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Tineke Van der Eecken's writing draws on a rich life experience, a keen interest in people and friendship, and a strong sense of place. 'If everyone shared their story with others, the world would be a better place.' Hence, this author writes autobiographical fiction, poetry and (creative) non-fiction. Her love for language and multilingual background also forms the basis for, award winning poetry, including 'On Language', a trilingual poem based on a bilingual text by Belgian singer and poet Jacques Brel. In 2016 TIneke's manuscript 'Traverse' was shortlisted for the TAG Hungerford Award. The book was published by Wild Weeds Press in 2018. 

Professional memberships

• Board Member of WritingWA

• Member of Katherine Susannah Pritchard Writers Centre (KSP)

• Committee member at WA Poets Inc

• Member of Out of the Asylum Writers (OOTA)

• Nationally Accredited Mediator with the Australian RESOLUTION INSTITUTE.

Academic background

• Masters Degree in Criminological Sciences (Ghent, 1991), Postgraduate 'Children's Rights'

• Romaanse Filologie 1st Kan, University of Antwerp UFSIA, 1985

• Professional development in writing, editing and investigative journalism

• Trained and Accredited Mediator, LEADR, 2012

Languages

• Mother tongue Flemish (Dutch)

• English (second language)

• French (fluent)

• Italian

• Some German

• Notions of Kirundi

• Studied Latin Languages (French and Spanish) at UFSIA (University of Antwerp)

• Latin and ancient Greek at OLVP High School

Other professional interests

• ​Jewellery design and fabrication (Tineke Creations)

• Mediator for the WA Department of Justice

• Co-coordinator of Poetry d'Amour 2011-2019 

• MC and sessions chair at Perth International Arts Festival Writers Week since 2012

• Representative of Vlamingen In de Wereld for Western Australia

• Not-for-profit management (WritingWA, Community Vision Inc, Lung Institute of Western Australia)

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