joanne burns

joanne burns was born in Sydney, Australia. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 1966 and taught English in London and New South Wales. A writer of monologues and short fiction, she explores the boundaries of genre in her work and frequently writes in prose poem form. Surreal and ironic, her work observes and comments on contemporary society and mores. burns is the author of a dozen collections of poetry, including Snatch (1972), Ratz (1973), Ventriloquy: Monologues 1977–80 (1981), blowing bubbles in the 7th lane: small stories (1988), penelope’s knees (1996), aerial photography (1999), footnotes of a hammock (2004), the audio CD kept busy (2007), an illustrated history of dairies (2007), Amphora (2011), brush (2014), and apparently (2019). Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry (1991), The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets (1986), and The Oxford Book of Australian Women’s Verse (1995).

burns has received grants from the Literature Board of the Australian Council for the Arts and the 2005 ACT Arts Judith Wright Prize. She lives in Sydney and has been a member of the Sydney Women Writers Workshop. Her work has been produced for theatre, radio, and television, and has been translated into German, French, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian.