Biographies of the Poets

POETRY BIOGRAPHIES

Les Murray AO is Australia's leading poet and one of the greatest contemporary poets writing in English. He has been made honorary D.Litt. from both the University of New England and the University of New South Wales. His work has been published in ten languages including Catalan and Hindi.
Les Murray has won many literary awards, including the Grace Leven Prize (1980 and 1990), the Petrarch Prize (1995), and the prestigious T.S. Eliot Award (1996). In 1999 he was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry on the recommendation of Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. He has published some thirty books, the most recent being Biplane Houses published in 2007. His biography Les Murray – A Life in Progress, by Peter Alexander was published in 2000 by Oxford University Press and in three days sold 3500 copies.

David Gilbey teaches Australian Children’s and 19^th Century Literature and Creative Writing at Wagga’s Charles Sturt University. He is President of Wagga Wagga Writers and editor of the annual anthology of new writing fourW.
He has been widely published and is planning to spend a few weeks at Bundanon finalizing a new book this year. He will give some workshops for schools during his stay.
He was one of three poets who published a collection of work in Under the Rainbow, 1996 fourWpress.

Peter Skrzynecki was born in Germany in 1945 and came to Australia in 1959. He has published 15 books of poetry and prose and his works have been translated into several languages including Polish, Spanish, German and Greek.
His prizes include the Grace Leven Poetry Prize, the Henry Lawson short story Award and the Captain Cook Bi-Centenary Award. His book Immigrant Chronicle has been a set text on the NSW HSC Syllabus for many years.
In 1989 he received the order of Cultural Merit from the Polish Government and in 2002 the medal of the Order of Australia for his contribution to Australian Multicultural Literature. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney. His new collection of Poems Old/New World: New and Selected Poems contains the best of eight previous collections as well as a new collection Blood Plums.

Jennifer Compton lives in Wingello on the Southern Highlands of NSW. She is a poet and a playwright and has written many plays for radio which have been produced in Australia and New Zealand.
The Goose's Bridle won an Awgie in the seventies. She directed three episodes for Poetica and was the instigator of a piece for The Listening Room with Les Murray called Oblique Narration. Jennifer Compton is a poet and playwright who also writes prose. In 2006 she spent six months at the Whiting Library in Rome. PressPress have just produced a small book called Roma that she wrote while she was there. During this time she was a guest at the Sarajevo Poetry Festival. She had a grant from the Australia Council for the Arts Literature Board to write a book of stories about a mythical village called Merrimba. Her next book of poetry is called Barefoot.

Kate Llewellyn is the author of 16 books. She has published six books of poetry and is the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Australian Women's Poetry. She wrote The Waterlily, a Blue Mountain Diary which has sold over 30,000 copies.
Her travel books include Lilies, Feathers & Frangipani on the Cook Islands and New Zealand, Angels and Dark Madonnas on India and Italy, and Gorillas Tea & Coffee, Travels in East Africa, published by Hudson Hawthorne and Burning: a Journal. Both The Waterlily and The Floral Mother and other Essays have been made into talking books.
Her most recent book is Sofala and Other Poems published in November 1999 by Hudson Hawthorne.

Chris Mansell Born in Sydney, Australia, attended schools in New Guinea and New South Wales. She has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney. For most of her working life she has been involved in writing, performing, print production, editing, and in lecturing about writing.
Chris is widely published in literary journals in Australia and overseas, and has also given many readings of her work. In 1978 she founded the literary magazine Compass poetry & prose which she edited until 1987.She is the author of numerous books of poetry and prose and has been the recipient of many prestigious literary awards both in Australia an overseas. She is also a lecturer and has mentored many younger poets in the Shoalhaven. She lives in Berry, NSW.

Les Wicks Resident of Bondi, NSW Les is formerly a railway worker and a traveller. He now works as a workshop facilitator, publisher and poet, His published works include Stories of the Feet (Five Islands, 2004), Appetites of Light (PressPress, 2002), The Ways of Waves (SideWaLK, 2000), Nitty Gritty (Five Islands Press, 1997). Tickle (Island Press, 1993), Cannibals (Rochford St Press, 1985), The Vanguard Sleeps In (Glandular Press, 1981). He has been a regular poet in previous Shoalhaven Festivals, and visited the area a number of times to do workshops.

Alison Thompson is a resident of Shoalhaven, with two young children. She has had her work published in the prestigious Blue Dog; also she won the Varuna Writers Award residency in 2006. A collection of her work will be published in a PressPress book this year.

Irene Wilkie's book Love & Galactic Spiders was published 2005 by Ginninderra Press and launched by Chris Mansell who, through her workshops and a mentoring program, set Irene on the exciting path of poetry. The members of a small poetry group, The Kitchen Table Poets were supportive by their 'to- the- point' critiques .

Irene’s poetry has been published in Five Bells, Poetrix, Muse, Yellow Moon, Dialogue, Taralla, The Broadkill Review USA, a dozen anthologies including Voices edited by Chris Mansell, On Common Water edited by Michael Byrne and All This Life ( FAW Shoalhaven.) Her work has also appeared on-line ( Australian Reader,) on disc and has been heard on radio ( 2SER) and at the Shoalhaven Poetry Festivals.

She was selected for the Poetry Masterclasses at Varuna in Katoomba in September 2006. Irene has completed her second book which is about to be sent out to publishers.

Jennifer Dickerson lives in Cambewarra and has been a writer since leaving school. She was a journalist on the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial, also Woman’s Day, The Australian, Truth, the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Channel Ten. She also wrote for TV and radio, and is the author of two books, Against the Tide, a biography of her husband the painter Robert Dickerson, and Chiaroscuro, a poetry collection, now in the second edition. Her work has been published in a number of magazines and books including Canberra Times, Noosa Blue, and Poetry Collaboration web site. She is a member of the Kitchen Table Poets, the Shoalhaven FAW and an advisor to the Shoalhaven Arts Board, is on the Arts Committees of the Sydney Children’s Hospital and the University of Western Sydney, and the Board of Management of the Nowra Youth Club.

Chere Le Page was born in Sydney. Although always interested in drawing and painting, Chere at first pursued a career in public relations and marketing, receiving a Diploma in Marketing from the University of NSW and a Diploma of Graphic Arts from the School of Visual Arts in Sydney. Chere worked for many years as a magazine editor, photographer and journalist before taking up studies at City Art Institute where she gained a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) and a post graduate diploma in Professional Art Studies. She has received many awards for painting and sculpture as well as writing. Her poetry won a Highly Commended in the 2006 Shoalhaven Literary Awards.

John Egan

John Egan has written poetry since university but, other than a few poems in
the Macquarie newspaper, has only seriously sought publication in the last
few years. He has been published in Australia, New Zealand and will soon
appear in the U.S. His first book NOT THE RAIN, THE WIND was published last
year by the Melbourne Poets Union. He teaches English for Academic Purposes
at Uniworld College in Sydney and has a house in the Shoalhaven area. He
thinks of himself as a poet of memory and water.

Susan McCreery writes poetry and short stories, although she has only been writing poetry for about three years. Her poetry has been published in Blue Dog, Poetrix, The Mozzie, the 2005/6 SCWC Anthology and in Voices from the Meadow, the Wollongong Workshop Anthology 2007. She has won several awards for her writing, including first prize in the 2006 Inverawe Outdoor Poetry competition. She lives in Thirroul with her two young sons, and works as a freelance proofreader/copy editor and as a tutor, helping children with their spelling and reading.