Contributors
Meera Atkinson
Meera Atkinson is a Sydney-based writer and poet. She is a graduate of the B.A. in Communications at the University of Technology, Sydney, earned a Masters (Honours) in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and is currently in the final stages of a Doctorate in Philosophy in the Writing and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney. Her current research, on the transgenerational transmission and poetics of trauma, involves creative practice in the form of a novel and a theoretical dissertation. Meera’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Salon.com, Meanjin, Best Australian Stories 2007 and Best Australian Poems 2010. She has been a contributor to Griffith REVIEW since its beginnings and was awarded a 2011 Griffith REVIEW GREW prize in the category of non-fiction. Most recently Meera was a finalist in the inaugural Voiceless Writing Prize, as selected by a judging panel including J.M. Coetzee (the essay subsequently appeared in the Voiceless anthology, published by Allen & Unwin).
Liana Joy Christensen
Liana Joy Christensen is the author of Deadly Beautiful - vanishing killers of the animal kingdom (Exisle 2011). Her animal-themed essays and poems have appeared in literary and scientific journals around the world, including Organisation and Environment, Tamkang Review, Prosopisia, Landscope, Australasian, German & Korean editions of GEO, Landscapes, Indigo and Australian Zoologist. She was a contributor to the Readers’ Digest Encyclopedia of Australian Wildlife (1997). In 2011, Liana was invited to create the role of Biodiversity Poet in Residence at the Flourish Festival in Margaret River, a three-day event which attracted both community and specialist audiences. Liana's essay "Big Ears" was one of the finalists in the 2013 Voiceless Writing Prize, subsequently published in the Voiceless Anthology, by Allen and Unwin (2013).
Chris Degeling
Chris Degeling is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, Sydney School of Public Health and a practicing community-based veterinarian. He has published in the fields of Animal ethics, Public health ethics, Veterinary epidemiology, Science and technology studies and Medical history. Current research interests include: Ethics and public policy processes; Nonhuman animals, population health and public health ethics; Ethics and animal experimentation; and the History and philosophy of medicine.
A. Marie Houser
A. Marie Houser is a writer and editor in the Midwest region of the United States. She is best known for her two-year collaboration with Dr. Melanie Joy on the books Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism and Strategic Action for Animals. She is the recipient of a 2013 Culture & Animals grant, an American Association of University Women Career Development grant, and the Academy of American Poet's Prize. Her poetry and fiction has been published in the journals The Barcelona Review, Avatar Review, Plainsongs, can we have our ball back?, Midway Journal, The Cortland Review, and others; she has published two nonfiction books for middle-grade to high-school readers. She is currently at work soliciting submissions for two anthologies that bridge activism and creative writing: After Coetzee: An Anthology of Fiction and The Disabled Vegan Reader.
A. Marie has been a visiting guest writer at the International School of Dakar and has taught at St. Catherine's University and Iowa State University. She sees her activism, writing and editing, and teaching as currents of the same river -- the river, as Heraclitus said, of change.
A. Marie has been a visiting guest writer at the International School of Dakar and has taught at St. Catherine's University and Iowa State University. She sees her activism, writing and editing, and teaching as currents of the same river -- the river, as Heraclitus said, of change.
Olga Kotnowska
For a long time now, Olga Kotnowska has felt unsettled by the silence that is wrapped around the discussions of animal welfare issues. Olga had first become aware of this silence during her Bachelor of Animals Science degree at Melbourne University, where she had felt very disappointed by the majority of philosophies distributed as part of the mainstream studies concerning animal welfare and its place in society.
Having always had an appreciation and feel for poetic expression and storytelling, it was a natural reaction for Olga to continue exploring the debates surrounding animal welfare by enrolling in the Master of Science Communication in Non-fiction Creative Writing, at New Zealand’s Otago University. Things were never the same again. After (re)discovering the power of story in its ability to communicate complex issues to the public, Olga was infected. Today, Olga continues to dedicate her time to the use of story and imaginative literature in her endeavor to transform this silence into stories, ones that – through both their rowdiness and sensitivity – are able to communicate to the public the many discussions that stem from the field of animal welfare and human/animal studies.
Having always had an appreciation and feel for poetic expression and storytelling, it was a natural reaction for Olga to continue exploring the debates surrounding animal welfare by enrolling in the Master of Science Communication in Non-fiction Creative Writing, at New Zealand’s Otago University. Things were never the same again. After (re)discovering the power of story in its ability to communicate complex issues to the public, Olga was infected. Today, Olga continues to dedicate her time to the use of story and imaginative literature in her endeavor to transform this silence into stories, ones that – through both their rowdiness and sensitivity – are able to communicate to the public the many discussions that stem from the field of animal welfare and human/animal studies.
Kit Lazaroo
Kit is a playwright in Melbourne's independent theatre scenes whose plays have received numerous awards and nominations. Working in collaboration with Here Theatre, she has explored human relationships with animal worlds, in plays such as True Adventures of a Soul Lost at Sea, Topsy, and the highly acclaimed Letters from Animals. Her new play, Bright Shiny, will receive a reading at the Spiegeltent in Melbourne in April 2013, - it continues her inquiry into the ways in which humans both desire and endanger animal-kind. Kit's play Asylum was winner of the 2005 Wal Cherry Award, was shortlisted for two Premier's Literary Awards and was published by Currency Press. In 2010 she completed a PhD exploring memory and creative arts amongst elderly East Timorsee asylum seekers, and in 2005 was a guest artist at Loke Kurtina, East Timor's inaugural theatre conference.
Christine Townend
'Christine Townend is a passionate woman whose life and talents have been devoted to the cause of animal care and liberation. Christine grew up in the lower North Shore area of Sydney and became a writer early in her life. She had poetry, short stories and four novels published by the time of her first campaign . . . She founded Animal Liberation in 1976, after being strongly influenced by Peter Singer's book of the same name. She and Singer together founded Animals Australia (then ANZFAS) in l980.
Christine is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her first book The Beginning of Everything and the End of Everything Else, published in 1974, has been described as being ahead of its time in 'challenging literary and social conventions' in its themes of feminism and 'sexuality, race, class and religion'. After her first two novels, Christine wrote a series of non-fiction books about animal welfare, including Pulling the Wool, A New Look at the Australian Wool Industry ( Hale & Iremonger, l986). Two of her books, The Hidden Master (2002), and The Teaching of Vimala Thakar (2010), (Motilal Banarsidass) examine the Indian spiritual tradition.'
Christine is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
(From: http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2027b.htm)
Christine is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. Her first book The Beginning of Everything and the End of Everything Else, published in 1974, has been described as being ahead of its time in 'challenging literary and social conventions' in its themes of feminism and 'sexuality, race, class and religion'. After her first two novels, Christine wrote a series of non-fiction books about animal welfare, including Pulling the Wool, A New Look at the Australian Wool Industry ( Hale & Iremonger, l986). Two of her books, The Hidden Master (2002), and The Teaching of Vimala Thakar (2010), (Motilal Banarsidass) examine the Indian spiritual tradition.'
Christine is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney.
(From: http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2027b.htm)
Contributor via electronic media
David Brooks
David Brooks has published several collections of poetry, short fiction and essays, and four novels, the most recent of which is The Conversation (UQP 2012). His work has been highly acclaimed, widely translated and anthologised, and short-listed for the Miles Franklin, NSW Premier’s, Adelaide Festival and many other awards. In 2011 he published The Sons of Clovis: Ern Malley, Adoré Floupette, and a Secret history of Australian Poetry. He teaches Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, is co-editor of the journal Southerly, lives in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, and spends a small part of each year in a village on the coast of Slovenia. A vegan, animal rights advocate, and author of numerous pieces on writing the animal, he is currently working with John Kinsella on a book of essays on the animal in literature (mainly but not exclusively Australian), and, with Christine Townend, editing a small collection of poetry about kangaroos, in support of THINKK’s attempts to change public attitudes toward the kangaroo and other macropods.