Creative Writing - Biography

Biography

Stand by for some obligatory self-trumpet blowing . . . if this kind of thing offends, please block your ears . . .

Ah, em . . .

My short fiction collection, Dodging the Bull (Wakefield Press 2007) was part of the 2008 The Age State Library Summer Read. I've also published two collections of poetry, Minorphysics (IP 2003) and Awake Despite the Hour (Five Islands Press 2007). Minorphysics won the 2003 IP Picks Award for Best Unpublished Australian Poetry Manuscript and stories from Dodging the Bull were highly commended in the 2005 Dinny O'Hearn Prize.

I've won a number of national short story prizes and my work has appeared in Best Australian Stories and Poems (Black Ink), as well as numerous journals and anthologies, including Meanjin, Heat, Overland, New Australian Stories (Scribe), Quadrant, Island and Antipodes, and will appear in this year's Readings Anthology. My freelance journalism has appeared in The Age, Sunday Herald-Sun, The Big Issue, Crikey.com, Eureka Street, AQ, Meanjin and Overland.

I received a 2006 Australia Council Developing Writers grant to work on the first two drafts of my novel, ‘The Memory Flower' (wt), and a 2009 Readings Fellowship to work on the final drafts. I am also currently working with three other writers on ‘Elemental', a poetry/film/music show that will be performed at the Melbourne Planetarium as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

I have appeared as a guest, panellist and workshop leader at numerous festivals, including the Melbourne Writers Festival, the Newcastle Young Writers Festival, the Williamstown Literary Festival and the Newstead Short Story Tattoo. I've also taught creative writing at the Victorian Writers Centre and Victoria University.