Bio

I live and write in Melbourne.

I am cur­rently work­ing on two major projects, both intrin­si­cally linked to India. One is a non­fic­tion book about cul­tural exchanges between Aus­tralia and India. The other is a fic­tion project – the cre­ative part of my PhD – about var­i­ous forms of travel by Aus­tralian tourists in India.

The ideals that are attached to for­eign places and the com­plex­i­ties of travel and dis­place­ment have been the main recur­ring themes through­out my writ­ing prac­tice. In my fic­tion and essays, I scru­ti­nise travel modes that are defined by west­ern con­ven­tions and expec­ta­tions, whether a search or denial of the exotic, and/or a false nomadic state that is medi­ated by com­mu­ni­ca­tions technologies.

My mem­oir, Dora B: A Mem­oir of My Mother was first pub­lished in 2005 by Pen­guin Aus­tralia, and in 2006 by Blooms­bury UK, and then it was pub­lished in Ger­many and France. My short fic­tion and essays have appeared, in Strange, Heat Mean­jin and Island Mag­a­zine, among others.

In 2004 I com­pleted an MA (research) in cre­ative writ­ing at The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, where I have been teach­ing and tutor­ing over a period of four years, and where I have recently been awarded a PhD in cre­ative writ­ing.
I was the recip­i­ent of a Varuna Writ­ing Fel­low­ship 2002, Varuna men­tor­ship res­i­dency 2003, Rose­bank Fel­low­ship 2009, Aus­tralia Coun­cil for the Arts 2010, Felix Meyer Schol­ar­ship 2012.

Men­tor­ing
I have been men­tor­ing emerg­ing writ­ers since 2014 at Writ­ers Victoria

Teaching/ lec­tur­ing Expe­ri­ence
Cre­ative Writ­ing MA course­work, school of Cul­ture & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, sub­ject: Life Writ­ing 2009, 2010.

Stu­dent Super­vi­sion
MA cre­ative writ­ing the­sis, non­fic­tion project, 2010

Tutor­ing expe­ri­ence:
Cre­ative Writ­ing course, school of Cul­ture & Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne. Under­grad­u­ate sub­jects: Aut­ofic­tions 2007. Diaries/Journal & Auto­bi­ogra­phies, 2008. Writ­ing Through Char­ac­ter, 2009.

Breath sub­ject: Going Places, Trav­el­ling Smarter, 2015

Pro­fes­sional Devel­op­ment
Advanced Skills two-days sem­i­nar for ses­sional teach­ers, Cen­tre for the Study of Higher Edu­ca­tion (CHSE) The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne Octo­ber 2008
Inno­v­a­tive Teach­ing Forum, one-day sem­i­nar, The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, Novem­ber 2008
Mel­bourne Teach­ing cer­tifi­cate, CHSE, The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, 2010
Non-Fiction Mas­ter­class with Robin Hem­ley, vis­it­ing scholar from the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa Writ­ing Pro­gram, an ini­tia­tive of Varuna Writ­ers Cen­tre. Decem­ber 2009

Con­fer­ences & fes­ti­vals:
Mel­bourne Writ­ers’ Fes­ti­val, 2005, Jew­ish Book Week, Lon­don 2006. Fig­u­ra­tions of Knowl­edge, SLSA (Soci­ety for Lit­er­a­ture, Sci­ence and Art) – 5th Euro­pean Meet­ing, Berlin June 2008.  Bor­ders & Cross­ings, inter­na­tional bi-lingual con­fer­ence on travel writ­ing the Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne July 2008. Aus­tralian Fes­ti­val of Travel Writ­ing The Wheeler Cen­tre, Novem­ber 2010. Futures, AntiThe­sis sym­po­sium, The Uni­ver­sity of Mel­bourne, July 2010. Chang­ing The Cli­mate: Utopia, Dystopia and Cat­a­stro­phe, Monash Uni­ver­sity, Mel­bourne, July 2010.  Con­fer­ence: Travel ideals: engag­ing with spaces of mobil­ity – 2012.

Pro­gram­ming and Mar­ket­ing assistant:

Aus­tralian Fes­ti­val of Travel Writ­ing, 2013.  http://www.aftw.com.au/
Aus­tralian Fes­ti­val of Travel Writ­ing, Novem­ber 2010
Con­fer­ence: Travel ideals: engag­ing with spaces of mobil­ity – 2012
http://www.travelresearchnetwork.com/

Aca­d­e­mic pursuits

I am a ‘mem­ber in the party of utopia’ to quote Fredric Jame­son. Quest­ing for a bet­ter world – if not the ideal one – led me, para­dox­i­cally, deep into the dark zone of dystopia. In my dis­ser­ta­tion, I am look­ing at accel­er­a­tion and decel­er­a­tion as tex­tual expres­sions in Cor­mac McCarthy’s novel The Road, and Alfonso Cuarón’s film Chil­dren of Men, while read­ing the the­ory of French philoso­pher Paul Vir­ilio, AKA The Priest of Speed.

I have read (or re-read) a litany of dystopias while writ­ing my the­sis. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1921) remains one of my all times favourite nov­els: clas­si­fied as ‘anti-utopian’ text, it pre­ceded and inspired George Orwell’s Nine­teen Eighty-Four, or as Paul Owen argues on The Guardian Books Blog, We was the tem­plate that Orwell pinched to write his clas­sic dystopia.
In my dis­ser­ta­tion I am attempt­ing to analyse how, in times of accel­er­ated moder­nity, lit­er­a­ture is devel­op­ing new hybrid forms as a means of express­ing cur­rent anx­i­eties and hopes about the future of human­ity. The cre­ative part of the PhD wrote itself towards an ambigu­ous, fic­tional future.