Australian Love Stories (36 page)

onto the golden and buttery toast and I could think about bees and ants and I could wonder about the surface of the honey and I could ask a kind of question about what happens in the universe (picking up some crossed wires from Hannah's mad bad sister of the quince and elderberry concoction who has a habit of saying— oooh—everything happens to everybody in the end you know— everybody
dies
in the end) what happens in the universe when the honey meets the air, or you could say when the shit hits the fan—I prefer to meditate on the honey—what happens when the honey meets the air.

Yes, I could wonder about that.

BIOGRAPHIES

BIOGRAPHIES

Catherine Bateson
is a poet and a writer for children and young adults. She has recently spent three months in Paris on an Australia Council funded residency and is writing a novel for young adults based on that time. Her latest novel,
Star
, was published by Omnibus Books.

Jon Bauer
is a counsellor and writer. His first novel
Rocks in the Belly
won the 2011 Indie Award for Best Debut Fiction, was shortlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and published in eight countries. He is finalizing his second novel.

Tony Birch
is a widely published short fiction writer and the author of the acclaimed novel,
Blood
(UQP 2011) which was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. He teaches in the Creative Writing program at Melbourne University.

Carmel Bird
is a novelist, short story writer and anthologist, who has written nine literary novels, six collections of short fiction, three books on the art of writing, and edited six anthologies of essays and stories. carmelbird. com

Kevin Brophy
is the author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction and essays. He was a founding co-editor of
Going Down Swinging
from 1980–1994. He teaches creative writing at the University of Melbourne.

Allison Browning's
work has appeared in
Best Australian Poems
,
Going Down Swinging
, and
Kill Your Darlings
. Her work has been shortlisted for the Carmel Bird Short Fiction Award, the Aesthetica UK Award and for the Martha Richardson Poetry Prize. ‘These Bones' is an extract from her novel-length manuscript, being developed under an Australian Society of Authors awarded mentorship.

Catherine Cole
has written novels, poetry, non-fiction and memoir. Her short stories have appeared in a range of anthologies including
Best Australian Stories
. She is an academic at the University of Wollongong.

David Francis'
Agapanthus Tango
was published in seven languages.
Stray Dog Winter
was named Novel of the Year in the Australian Literature Review and won an American Library Association Prize for Literature. His short fiction has appeared in
Best Australian
Stories
,
Griffith Review
,
Meanjin
and
Harvard
Review
. straydogwinter.com

Irma Gold
has written three children's books, her short fiction has been widely published in anthologies and journals, and her short story collection,
Two Steps Forward
, was either shortlisted for or won a number of prizes. She is Convener of Editing at the University of Canberra, and the recent recipient of a one-off award for Outstanding Service to Writing and Publishing in the ACT and Region. irmagold. com

Debi Hamilton
is a psychologist, writer and poet. Her first poetry collection was published by Melbourne Poets Union in 2013. One of her love poems appeared in
Australian Love
Poems
, and was subsequently aired on Radio National's ‘Poetica'.

Lisa Jacobson:
The Sunlit Zone
won the 2014 Adelaide Festival John Bray Poetry Award and received four national shortlistings. Her fiction has won HQ Short Story Competition, placed in
The Age
Short Story Award. Her stories have been published in
Best Short Stories
and
Stand Magazine
(U.K.),
Penguin Australian
Summer Stories
,
She's Fantastical
and
Heat
. Her new poetry collection is
South in the World
.

Sally-Ann Jones
grew up in the Western Australian wheatbelt before climate change and land clearing caused 25–30% decrease in rainfall in the area. That landscape informs her writing, which includes the novel
Stella's Sea
(UWAP, 2013).

Sharon Kernot's
first novel,
Underground
Road
, was published by Wakefield Press in 2013. She has a collection of poetry and one of short stories, both published by Ginninderra Press. She teaches part-time in the English and Creative Writing Department at Flinders University.

Natasha Lester
is the award winning author of two novels,
What is Left Over, After
and
If I Should Lose You
. Her short stories have appeared in anthologies and
Overland
,
Wet Ink
and
indigo
journals.

Kathryn Lomer's
Two Kinds of Silence
won the 2008 NSW Premier's Award for poetry. Her young adult novel,
What Now, Tilda B?
won the Margaret Scott Prize, and her short fiction collection,
Camera Obscura
, was shortlisted in the Queensland Premier's Awards. Her latest poetry collection is
Night Writing
(UQP, 2014).

Danielle McGee
is studying Honours in Creative Writing at University of Western Australia. She has a Bachelor of Education (K–7) and has worked as an early childhood teacher. She now works for Fremantle Press creating teaching programs to accompany children's and young adult fiction releases as well as editing her university's creative arts journal,
Trove
.

Susan Midalia's
A History of the Beanbag
(UWAP 2007) was shortlisted for the WA Premier's Awards, and
An Unknown Sky
(UWAP 2012) was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Megg Minos'
story ‘Bern's Wedding' won the Visible Ink Short Story Competition, ‘River Tide' was commended in the My Brother Jack Awards and the Australia Council supported her to produce her novella,
Lens
. She is working on a novel.

Lois Murphy
has won a few awards, including the Sisters in Crime Cate Kennedy Award for Best New Talent and the 2013 Northern Territory Literary Award for short fiction. She currently lives in Darwin.

Alexis Drevikovsky
was born in Sydney. She writes to find answers and runs to prove people wrong. She has tried her hand at language teaching, the travel industry and the sustainability sector, and now works in the arts sector.

Bruce Pascoe,
a Bunurong/Tasmanian/Yuin man, is an awarding winning writer, editor and anthologist. His works have been published nationally and internationally and have won several national literary competitions. He has worked as a publisher, Aboriginal language researcher, and he appeared in the SBS TV program,
The First Australians
.

Caroline Petit
has published two novels:
The
Fat Man's Daughter
and
Deep Night
with Soho Press, NY. Her short stories have appeared in Australian literary journals, the
Asia Literary
Review
and been broadcast on Radio National Australia. She is currently working on her third novel.

Candace Petrik
has been published in
Wet
Ink
,
Voiceworks
and
The Death Mook
. She has studied Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT, Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne and spent several years working in the fiction section of Borders Carlton before the great bookpocalypse.

Susan Pyke
teaches with the University of Melbourne. Her poetry, short stories and associative essays have appeared in various journals including
Southerly
,
Text Journal of
Writing and Writing Courses
,
New Writing:
The International Journal for the Practice and
Theory of Creative Writing
,
Descant
,
Overland
and
Island
.

Toby Sime
and his wife and children live in the country with a dog and, lately, a supercilious uninvited rat. He likes reading Pound, Flann,
O'Brien and second rank poets of the English mainstream, but what he really likes is picnics by the riverbank with his new supercilious uninvited friend.

J Anne deStaic
lives by the Georges River in Sydney in a house with two dogs and a purple roof. She is a Pediatrician by trade.

Leah Swann's
story collection,
Bearings
, was published by Affirm press in 2011. Her work has appeared in
Best Australian Short Stories
,
The World To Come
,
Award Winning Australian
Writing
and
Review of Australian Fiction
. The first volumes of
The Ragnor Trilogy
were published by XOUM in 2012 and 2013, with the third due in November, 2014. Affirm Press is publishing her novel in 2015.

Rafael SW
has been published in
The Big Issue
Fiction Edition
,
Voiceworks
and
Award Winning
Australian Writing
. He is a founding member of Dead Poet's Fight Club, regularly contributes to
Going Down Swinging
online and competes in poetry slams. rafaelsw.com

Claire Varley
is a Melbourne writer. Her work has appeared in
Australian Love Poems
,
page
seventeen
,
Sotto Magazine
,
Seizure
online,
Islet
and
[untitled]
.