Writer Broadcaster Director Science/ART Lover
I'm beyond humbled and certainly giddy! that I've won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize with my poem ‘Life Cycles of our Trash and Treasure Market’. My poem was inspired by Dawe (and a touch of Murray).
Thanks to University of Southern Queensland and the judges!
You can read my poem 'Life Cycles of our Trash and Treasure Market' HERE.
I've always loved the story of Jocelyn Bell Burnell - an astrophysicist who discovered pulsars in 1967 while still a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. My poem about her (alongside a poem on isolation) is up on The Blue Nib
I have two poems in Science Write Now! My poems Emmy Noether and Carolyn Beatrice Parker are in this issue alongside other incredible writers.
From the editors: Amanda Niehaus and Jessica White:
Science Write Now has been a long time in the making, and along the way we’ve benefited from countless conversations with friends and colleagues about science and writing and reading. It feels like every book club, panel, or workshop we attended; every novel or story or essay or poem we read or wrote; every door that closed on where we thought we were going—they all led here. To this moment.
In this first edition, we are celebrating Women in Science with essays, fiction, poetry, and interviews with/from writers and scientists across Australia. Jess writes about 19th-century botanist Georgiana Molloy, asking why her work was never quite considered ‘science’; Amanda asks us to move beyond 1950s stereotypes; Alicia Sometimes captures the careers of scientists Emmy Noether and Carolyn Beatrice Parker in poetry; and Krissy Kneen shares an excerpt from her forthcoming novel, Theories of Entanglement, in which a young woman ultimately choses to leave science. In craft-based essays, Andrea Baldwin shows us how science can be effectively integrated into story, and Donna Mazza examines her process in writing her science-based novel, Fauna. Visual ecologist Karen Cheney gives us insights into her research on fish vision and colour, inspiring us to create a few writing prompts based on colour vision and communication. Amanda also shares some of what she’s been reading and listening to, and there are a heap of great links to valuable science-y resources you might use to inspire your work.
Finally (!), next week we’ll post our interview with Laura Elvery whose latest short story collection Ordinary Matter derives its inspiration from the names and motivations of twenty women in science who won the Nobel Prize. You don’t want to miss this! And if you’d like a copy of Laura’s book, we have one to giveaway, courtesy of UQP. Anyone who signs up for our newsletter before 7 September is eligible to win!
I’m thrilled to have my poem, Gravitational Waves published in Best Australian Science Writing 2020
The annual collection – now in its tenth year – celebrating the finest voices in Best Australian Science Writing 2020!
Can fish feel pain? Does it matter if a dingo is different from a dog? Is there life in a glob of subterranean snot? Science tackles some unexpected questions. At a time when the world is buffeted by the effects of a pandemic, climate change and accelerating technology, the fruits of scientific labour and enquiry have never been more in demand. Who better to navigate us through these unprecedented days than Australia's best science writers.
Now in its tenth year, this much-loved anthology selects the most riveting, entertaining, poignant and fascinating science stories and essays from Australian writers, poets and scientists. In their expert hands such ordinary objects as milk and sticky tape become imbued with new meaning, while the furthest reaches of our universe are made more familiar and comprehensible.
With a foreword from Nobel laureate and immunologist Peter C Doherty, this collection brings fresh perspective to the world you thought you knew.
Link HERE.
grand collection of
fundamental particles
(*except gravity)
My first Math Haiku published in The Math Haiku Project!
Big Bang’s first fierce fight
— particle antithesis —
wrestling imbalance
By Alicia SometimesMy first Sciku was published in The Sciku Project!
So thrilled to be part of the Melbourne City of Literature’s Poet Laureate that is happening all year. You can read the poem HERE and sign up to read all the others for the year!
From the Mouth of a Non-Problematic Statue in Australia
‘And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things…’
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
You would think there
would be more of us
single digits for:
Indigenous Australians
women
persons with disability
LGBTIQA+
or any BIPOC
in bronze or stone
or granite or marble
or plaster or concrete
after all—it is
the imprint
of one epoch
onto another
We’ve been constructed
by those with power
hierarchies of culture
deciding who gets tenure
you might see me
tucked in a corner of a park
might be on your Bingo card—
you have to know where to look
some of us have
been protested
how come they get a statue?
as if we are other
Until now:
colonial
imperial
racist
wealthy
erections
have not been
questioned enough
symbols of division
sculptures of rifts
frozen
in time
don’t touch our history
as if history is
only carved in
stone
where will it end?
as if it should begin
with pain
not all statues
a difference between
those who have flaws
and those who are elevated
by the weight of their shame
we need to protect them
but not listen
or change?
So much brightness
and depth
left out
(even Greek and Roman
statues were polychrome—
their colour peeled off
and forgotten)
examine everything
you have my permission
to put some in museums
keep others in galleries
create art around them
for context
or let them go
at least
get them off a pedestal
My TEDxUQ talk is finally up. It is called: Honouring your wonder: observing the world through art and science.
Above us, an expanse of stars, planets, and distant galaxies has inspired scientists and artists alike for millennia. Looking up at the night sky, renowned astronomers and famous poets have been inspired - albeit each in their own method - to understand and interpret the universe we live in and the place that humanity occupies within it.
Image from Particle/Wave by Andrew Watson
Dark Sky Dreamings: an Inland Skywriters Anthology, was published by Interactive Publications Pty Ltd (IP) and launched in Tamworth, northern NSW, on 31 October, 2019, with the Tamworth Regional Astronomy Club.
My poem ‘Perspective’ is one of 50 poems chosen for this anthology.
The Big Issue announces 2019 fiction edition line-up! Excited to have one of my stories chosen in here!
The Big Issue has announced the writers who will feature in its annual fiction edition.
The edition will feature stories from five commissioned writers: Heather Rose, Michael Mohammed Ahmad, Mark Brandi, Alison Evans and Ellen van Neerven.
Nine stories were also chosen from 424 submissions. The writers are: K W George, Ben Walter, Mirandi Riwoe, Lisa Walker, Simon Castles, Greg Foyster, Alice Robinson, Alicia Sometimes and Chloe Wilson.
The Big Issue fiction edition is available from street vendors now.
