About
I’m a writer living in Geelong, Australia. Once, my face looked like this. The moment didn’t last though, and it often looks quite different.
I mostly write fiction that sits somewhere between the real and the unreal. I have an MFA from the University of British Columbia and a PhD in creative writing at Deakin University in Geelong. I like reading things that surprise me. I believe that the comic and the tragic are often found in one breath. I'm Australian but deeply suspicious of the idea. I’ve lived in several places outside of Australia but always find my way back to Wadawurrung country, in southern Victoria, where I was born. For money, I’ve taught creative writing, analysed processes, managed projects and sold books, but very rarely at the same time. I’ve published work in places like The Age/The Sydney Morning Herald, Meanjin, Text Journal, The Dalhousie Review, The Sleepers Almanac, The Big Issue, Verandah, Tincture and Page Seventeen. In 2020 I won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript for my novel, Hovering. It’s out now through Hachette Australia.
Publications, awards, and other things that happened
Shortlisted for Aurealis Awards (Science Fiction) for Hovering, 2023
Shortlisted for Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction for Hovering, 2022
Kill Your Darlings Book of the Month, April 2022 - Shelf Reflection
Readings Fiction Book of the Month, March 2022
Meanjin blog, March 2022 - Patience
Hovering, March 2022
The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, February 2022 - Is the city I used to know still there?
Meanjin blog, June 2021 - What I’m Reading
Text Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, April 2020 - Avoiding it: writing fiction about place without writing about it
Winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript, 2020, for Hovering
Text Special Issue No. 49 on Writing and Gaming, July 2018 - Making it old and new: Intermedial print-digital approaches to the novel as response to media competition
The Molotov Cocktail Prize Winners Anthology Volume 2, December 2016
The Molotov Cocktail, Halloween 2015 - Table
The Dalhousie Review, Spring 2015 - Economy of Movement
Sleepers Almanac 9, 2014 – Interior/exterior
Tincture Journal, Issue 4 2013 – Man in city has city
21D, Issue 4 2013 – In the gaps between coordinates
Sleepers Almanac 8, 2013 – Salad bar
Page Seventeen, 2012 – Stalks
The Big Issue Fiction Edition, 2012 – Pretend we’re not here
Windmills, 2010 – Follicle, In the back seats of a collapsing theatre
Verandah 24, 2009 – In paper hallways
Portrait photo by Rebekah Halls at PopClick