My latest book of poems is Breaking the Surface, released in October 2023. The publisher, Ginninderra Press, has produced it handsomely. This volume celebrates my return to the genre of poetry after a decade-long deviation into fiction, which included five novels along with numerous short stories.

Earlier versions of a few poems appeared in my previous collections, but most of the contents of Breaking the Surface are recent, appearing during the last couple of years in various Australian and international journals and anthologies. Several have won commendations or awards in competitions (Antipodes Prize, Henry Kendall Prize, Joanne Burns Award, Letter Review Prize, Mundaring Prize, Poetry d’Amour Prize, ACU Prize, Alice Sinclair Prize, Shakespeare Society Prize, Mattara Prize).

My poetry has been published in Antipodes, Epoch, Nantucket Review and Shot Glass (USA), Ariel and Descant (Canada), Catalyst, Climate, Flash Frontier and Troubador (New Zealand), and in the Australian magazines Burrow, Cordite, Creatrix, Mattoid, Meanjin, New Poetry, Pure Slush, Quadrant, Saltbush Review, StylusLit, South-West Review, Unlikely and Voices.

It has also been anthologised in Ear to Earth, Mapped But Not Known, Neither Nuked nor Crucified, Number 2 Friendly Street, Pattern and Voice, Play, Out of the Shadows,  Poetry Downtown, Poetry for the Planet, Shorelines, Sonnets on Western Australia, The Friendly Street Poetry Reader, Three Blind Mice, Tuesday Night Live and Writings from the Shipwreck Coast.

For a podcast interview with me about Breaking the Surface, click here.

For Will Yeoman’s review of the book, click here.

For comments by other writers, click here.