Spinifex Press

Author/Editor: Lizz Murphy

Biography:

Lizz Murphy was born in Ireland in 1950 and emigrated to Australia in 1969 with her husband, Bill. She left school on her fifteenth birthday to work in various shops and has never looked back – she’s too afraid to! From retail, Lizz advanced to writing about sheep dips and bridal bouquets for a country newspaper before working as a publicist in the arts and publishing industries.

She is interested in regional, community and workplace art and in using the arts to get young people excited about language. While she values the skills she learned on the shop floor and the family atmosphere of her first job, she’s the first to encourage kids to try and stay at school and get some qualifications.

Lizz has published four anthologies of women’s writing and two collections of poetry. She has worked as the writer on House at Work, a book project with Parliament House, Canberra. And she is currently the Poetry Officer for the state of New South Wales. In recent years she has travelled widely including to the Kolkota Book Fair in India.

Lizz and Bill enjoy the solitude of the New South Wales village of Binalong. They have two children, Aroona and Brendan and two grandchildren, Michaela and Georgia.

Website: blog: http://lizzmurphypoet.blogspot.com; Website: http://sites.google.com/site/lizzmurphypoet/

News:

24 Mar 2010 Take a Walk with Words: Writing Workshop with Lizz Murphy

Lizz Murphy, writer of Two Lips Went Shopping and editor of Wee Girls is facilitating a workshop in Goulburn called 'Time to Write'.

Lizz Murphy invites you to take a walk with words. A walk through memory or imagination, a walk through town or around a corner shop, a walk by the river, a walk through your own day … Turn your walks into poems or prose pieces. Add detail, develop your characters, pick up your step, pick up the pieces... Go for a real walk (just a short one, weather permitting). You never know what you might find. Exercises to get you thinking, remembering, imagining, writing. Tips on writing challenges. Whether you are an aspiring writer or an old hand take TIME TO WRITE.

Date: Saturday March 27 10.00 am – 3.30 pm
Venue: Goulburn Library Civic Centre
Address: Bourke Street, Goulburn
Cost: $25/$15 unwaged, members of ACTWC or Miles Published writer

04 Mar 2010 Women, Words and Water at the Belconnen Arts Centre

On Sunday 7 March, Spinifex authors Ariel Salleh and Lizz Murphy will be part of the Belconnen Arts Centre event Women, Words and Water, an all-day literary event features prominent female authors and performers from the ACT and interstate.

Ariel Salleh will begin the day with an opening address titled The Value of Tears. Ariel is the editor of Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice: Women Writing Political Ecology(Spinifex Press, 2009).

Visit the events page at the Belconnen Arts Centre page to download the program or find out more information.

Click here to download the Women, Words and Water leaflet.

Women, Words and Water 10:00am–4:00pm Sunday 7 March

Awards and Translations:

1994 Anutech Poetry Prize, winner

1998 ACT Creative Arts Fellowship to develop Two Lips Went Shopping

Books published by, or available from, Spinifex: