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MEMBERS BIOGRAPHIES

Jacqueline Cooke is a member of the Australian Society of Authors and a founder member of The Eight Pens Literary Group, Southern Tasmanian Women Writers and Poets. Her work has been published in several anthologies, in literary journals and her short stories have been read on the BBC and the ABC. She is a prize-winner in local, interstate and international competitions, for both her short stories and her poetry.

Geoff Dean has been writing since the early 1960s. He has published in a wide variety of magazines in Australia and overseas. His many literary prizes include the Victorian Government FAW Short Story Award and the Arafura Literary Award. He has also written for radio and film. He has published five books.

Berenice Eastman has been involved in research on Tasmanian author Nan Chauncy for many years. Her first draft of "Nan Chauncy, a Writer's Life" won for her the Walter Stone Award for Biography in 1984. Born and educated in Sydney she currently lives in Tasmania where she has completed a Masters degree on an unpublished text by Nan Chauncy.

Anne Kellas is manager of Roaring Forties Press and works in online publishing. In the 1990s she was one of the poetry editors of Famous Reporter. Her work has appeared in Australian magazines such as Poetry Australia, Blue Dog, LiNQ, Quadrant, Island, Westerly, Imago, Studio, Going Down Swinging, Outrider, Famous Reporter, Mattoid, etc. and more recently in online magazines and chapbooks such as RePUBlic readings.

Karen Knight won the Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellowship Award 2006 which allowed her a month’s residency at Varuna Writer’s House in the Blue Mountains, and included an inaugural three-week exchange residency to the Edinburgh Literary Festival in 2006. Her poetry has been widely published in Australian and overseas literary journals, including Blue Dog, Island and The Best Australian Poems 2005, edited by Les Murray. She was assisted by an Arts Tasmania grant to write her poetry collection Under the one granite roof, Pardalote Press, 2004.

Kathryn Lomer is a novelist and poet living in Hobart. She is a regular contributor to the Poets' Union magazine, Five bells. Kathryn won the 2003/2004 Anne Elder award, and is a previous winner of the Gwen Harwood, Melbourne Poets’ Union, Josephine Ulrick and ANUTECH poetry prizes.

Kathleen Lonergan is a member of The Eight Pens Literary Group and co-author of Short 'n Curly (1996) and Short 'n Curly: Seasons (1997). Kathleen has recently published a family history of the Lonergans, titled Strongest Hand Uppermost. In 2001 one of her stories was published in the Derwent Valley's From Federation to Millennium Celebration Book.

Peter Macrow writes haiku and longer poems, book reviews and fiction, and his work has been published in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United States, Canada, Scotland, Belgium, Bulgaria and England. Since December 2000, when his first published poem appeared in Famous Reporter, Peter has had over 200 poems published. He edited issues 8 & 9 of Republic Readings. He is the founding editor of the poetry chapbook series, Blue Giraffe.

Robyn Mathison was born in Narrandera, NSW in 1938, and has lived in Hobart since 1975. She writes poetry, stories and reviews and has been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, UK and Japan. She has been FAW secretary for fifteen years, and has co-edited three anthologies of Tasmanian writing.

Anne Morgan is the author of The Glow Worm Cave (Aboriginal Studies Press, 1999), The Crown and Gown (Cambridge University Press, 2002), Warts ‘n’ All (Koala Books, 2003), and Echoes from the Firetrails (FAW-WA, 2004). She has won the Banjo Paterson Poetry Award, the Colin and Norma Knight Memorial Award, the Colin Knight Memorial Award (twice), the Hal Moore Poetry Award and the SAE Strõm Maritime Short Story Award.

Tony Mount grew up in the UK. His university degrees were obtained in Australia (BSc. Adelaide; BFor. Canberra; MSc. Tasmania). During his working life as a forest fire ecologist he began writing light verse and short stories, as well as academic papers. With his wife, Sue, he is an active orienteer: they have three sons and nine grandchildren.

Esther Ottaway was named 2006 Australian Young Poet of the Year, and her first collection, Blood Universe, will be published by the Poets Union in September 2006. Earlier work has been published in The Australian and in literary journals including Meanjin, Southerly, Blue Dog and Famous Reporter, and some of her poems have been arranged as contemporary jazz works. She was awarded an Arts Tasmania grant and a Varuna Fellowship in 2005. Esther’s major subject themes include music and musicians, pregnancy and motherhood, and the idiosyncrasies of Australian culture.

Louise Oxley's poetry is widely published in Australia and a selection of her work appeared in the 2000 anthology, Moorilla Mosaic. Louise received a Varuna Fellowship in 2000 and again in 2004. Louise Oxley's first collection, Compound Eye, (Five Islands Press, New Poets Series n.9) was short-listed for the Anne Elder award.

Jim Paterson has published two books - a book of verse and A King Island Settler's Tale. Both these reflect his experiences as a woolclasser, wheat farmer, woolbuyer, station manager, grazier and his interest in agripolitics and the history of Soldier Settlement on King Island. He has been a book reviewer and tutor with Adult Education in Hobart.

Lyn Reeves’ poetry, stories and haiku have been published widely in journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. She was runner-up in the 1999 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and has been the recipient of Arts Tasmania and Australia Council writers’ grants, a Varuna Fellowship and writers’ residencies in Tasmania and the Northern Territory. She co-ordinated the Moorilla Museum series of readings and is haiku editor of Famous Reporter. She is the Publisher at Pardalote Press.

Megan Schaffner has had poems and short stories published in literary journals including Westerly, Fine Line and Social Alternatives, and has co-edited two anthologies. She is one of four women whose poems and articles are collected in Grim Works (2000). In retirement, Megan runs poetry groups that meet to enjoy poetry across a range of countries and centuries, and edits manuscripts for friends.

Edith Speers was born in Canada, and studied biochemistry before moving to Australia in 1974. She's a poet, teacher, editor and publisher, and manages Esperance Press, located in Dover, Tasmania. She co-edited the anthology A Writer's Tasmania (Esperance Press, 2000) which showcases stories about Tasmania by Tasmanians writing about their personal experiences on the 'remote and beautiful island'.

Liz Winfield’s first poetry collection Too Much Happens, Cornford Press, 2003, was assisted by an Arts Tasmania grant. She has coordinated the Republic Readings from their inception in 1999 and edits chapbooks and a poetry broadsheet The Poets’ Republic, for Walleah Press; and is the current Tasmanian President of the FAW.

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