Paul Hetherington is an award-winning poet and Professor of Writing in the Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra, where he is head of the International Poetry Studies Institute (IPSI). He has also worked in the cultural sector, most notably for the National Library of Australia, where he was Director of Publications and Events for many years. Paul chaired the ACT Cultural Council (2005-13) and the ACT Public Art Panel (2006-11) and in these roles instigated various arts initiatives and led the development and delivery of the first comprehensive policy and action framework for public art in the ACT. He has published 15 full-length poetry and prose poetry collections—most recently the co-authored Fugitive Letters (RWP, 2020) and Typewriter and Manuscript (Life Before Man, 2020)—along with a verse novel and nine chapbooks.

Paul’s writing has won or been nominated for more than thirty national and international awards and competitions and he also won the individual 2017 Research Excellence Award, Humanities and Creative Arts, at University of Canberra. He is co-author of a scholarly study of the prose poem for Princeton University Press (2020), co-editor of the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry (MUP, 2020) and joint founding editor of the international online journal Axon: Creative Explorations.

Contact: Paul.Hetherington@canberra.edu.au