Literature board members
Prof Dennis Haskell, WA
Professor Dennis Haskell is a poet, editor, critic and academic. He was an editor of the literary magazine Westerly from 1985-2009, was for three years the poetry critic for the ABC's "Books and Writing" programme, and has published numerous collections of poetry. He was Chair of the Academic Board at the University of Western Australia from 2001-2004 and is currently Professor of English and Cultural Studies there.
His poetic style has been described as "observant, fluent and accessible". Finding poetry in the "ordinary", his verse explores the nuances of interpersonal relationships, new environments and domestic life. As well as his collections of poetry, his books include studies of John Keats, Kenneth Slessor and Australian poetic satire. His Acts of Defiance: New and Selected Poems will be published in February 2010.
Dr Peter Holbrook, Qld
Dr Peter Holbrook is a Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Queensland. He graduated with a First Class Honours degree in English and Ancient Greek from the University of Melbourne in 1982, and subsequently won a full scholarship to Yale University, where he earned an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in English. He has a particular interest in the poetry, prose and drama of the English Renaissance. His publications include Literature and Degree in Renaissance England: Nashe, Bourgeois Tragedy, Shakespeare (University of Delaware Press, 1994) and The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (edited with David Bevington, Cambridge University Press, 1998). His essays and reviews have appeared in a range of publications in Australia and overseas. In 2006 he edited a special issue of The Shakespearean International Yearbook, which explored some connections between Shakespeare's works and those of the sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne. Peter Holbrook enjoys teaching and writing about many different kinds of literary texts, from ancient to modern.
Prof Gail Jones, NSW
Professor Gail Jones is professor in writing at the University of Western Sydney. She was educated at the University of Western Australia and was formerly an associate professor in the English department there. In 2001, she won The Australian University Teaching Award in the Humanities and the Arts category. Her research interests include gender and narrative theory, literary theory, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, creative writing, contemporary literature and film studies. Jones' collections of short stories, The House of Breathing and Fetish Lives have been translated into Italian and Czech. Her short stories have appeared in numerous journals and have been highly praised for their linguistic richness and intellectual complexity, their subtle humour and intricate craftwork. Her structually complex novel Black Mirror was described by the judges of the Nita Kibble Literary Award as "a witty interrogation of the problems faced by the biographer". Her 2007 novel Sorry was widely praised and became part of the national debate on the Stolen Generation.
Margo Lanagan, NSW
Margo Lanagan is an Australian writer of short stories and young adult fiction. Recently, several of her books have attracted worldwide attention. Her short story collection Black Juice won two World Fantasy Awards. It was published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in 2004, and in North America by HarperCollins in 2005. It includes the much-anthologized short story "Singing My Sister Down". Her short story collection White Time originally published in Australia by Allen & Unwin in 2000, was published in North America by HarperCollins in August 2006, after the success of Black Juice. A third collection Red Spikes is now available.
John Romeril, Regional Vic
John is a pivotal playwright in the Australian theatre scene. He began in the late 60s and was a key writer for the Pram Factory. He has won numerous awards, most recently the Patrick White Award and his plays have been widely performed here, and in the region (Vietnam, Japan, Okinawa). He was the recipient of an Australia Council Creative Fellowship (2004-2006) from the Literature Board.
Fay Zwicky, WA
Fay Zwicky was a Senior Lecturer in English literature at the University of Western Australia. She now devotes her time entirely to writing. She has received many literary awards for her writing, including the 1982 NSW Premier’s Award for Poetry for Kaddish and Other Poems (UQP, 1982), and the 1991 Western Australian Premier’s Award for Poetry for Ask Me (UQP, 1990). In 1993 she published the collection Fay Zwicky: Poems 1970–1992 (UQP, 1993). In 2005, she was awarded the Patrick White Award and the FAW Christopher Brennan Award, and was made a State Living Treasure of Western Australia in 2004. Her most recent collection, Picnic, was published in 2006 and in 2007 she was awarded the New South Wales Premier's Award for Poetry.