Creative Writing - Biography

Biography

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

Ah, em . . . 

I am a Melbourne-based fiction writer and poet. Wakefield Press will soon publish a collection of my short fiction and individual stories have appeared in the past two Best Australian Stories (2004 and 2005) (Black Inc. Frank Moorhouse ed.). Stories have also appeared in Island, Overland, Antipodes, Deathbed Challenge (Sleepers Almanac 2005) and the Cardigan Press Anthology, Normal Service Will Resume (2003). I won the University of Canberra National Short Story Competition in 2004, the Eastern Regional Libraries National Short Story Competition in 2005, and prizes in several other competitions, including the My Brother Jack National Short Story Competition. My fiction was also highly commended in the 2005 Dinny O’Hearn Scholarship.
             
My poetry collection, Minorphysics (IP 2003), won the 2003 IP Picks Award for best unpublished Australian poetry manuscript. Five Islands Press will release a new collection in April 2007. Individual poems have appeared in The Australian, The Age, Heat, Meanjin, Overland, Southerly, Quadrant, Verandah, Space: New Writing, Cordite, Going Down Swinging, Antipodes (US), slope (US), Best Australian Poems 2004 (Black Inc., Les Murray ed.) and numerous other journals and anthologies. I was runner-up in the 2005 Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award for Poetry and I've received numerous awards and commendations for my work.
 
I'm known for giving all I can in a reading; I've performed at New York’s Bowery Poetry Club, the Melbourne Writers’ Festival, the Newcastle Young Writers Festival, Big West Festival, Montsalvat Festival of Poetry and Song, and have been a feature at most major Melbourne poetry venues. I have also written and performed two dramatic monologues, Sleepless in Braybrook (the Yarraville Festival) and Get the Word (La Mama Theatre, Melbourne). My spoken word CD with Bill Buttler, As if nothing is happening . . . and it is, released in 2005 and receives airplay on Melbourne’s 3RRR FM.
 
I've got a BA in Journalism from RMIT and I recently completed a MA in Creative Arts (Creative Writing) on the poetry of Kevin Hart.

Enough of me! here's some Links to writerly types

alicia sometimes -  poet and Triple R poetry host

christy dena - writer and cross-media researcher 

adam ford - writer, zine maker, show-off (his words, not mine!) 

davey dreamnation - the one and only, live everywhere

ray liversidge - poetry in the raw, straight to the bone