Author/Editor: Susan Hawthorne
Biography
 Susan Hawthorne is the author of two novels, a verse novel, nine collections of poetry, two chapbooks and four non-fiction titles. Her poetry collection, Cow (2011) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Award in the 2012 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards as well as being a finalist in the 2012 Audre Lorde Lesbian Poetry Award (USA). Earth’s Breath was shortlisted for the 2010 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. She has been the recipient of three international residencies: in 2018 in the Göl Writers House, Bursa, Turkey; in 2013 from the Australia Council, the BR Whiting Library in Rome for six months to write Lupa and Lamb; and in 2009 a four-month Asialink residency in Chennai, India, to write Cow. Her work has been published in Australia and internationally in anthologies and literary magazines, in the annual Best Australian Poems (three times) and broadcast on Radio National Poetica (twice).
Her novel, The Falling Woman (1992) was a Top Twenty Title in the New Zealand Listener Women’s Book Festival and listed as one of the year’s best books in The Australian. Dark Matters was published in 2017 and has attracted exceptional reviews.
Her non-fiction includes The Spinifex Quiz Book (1993) shortlisted in the Australian Educational Awards and Wild Politics (2002) selected as one of the Year’s Best Books in the Australian Book Review. Bibliodiversity: A Manifesto for Independent Publishing (2014) has been translated into Arabic, French, Spanish, German and Czech. Her most recent is In Defence of Separatism (2019). The last two are in the Spinifex Shorts series.
She won the 2017 Inspire Award, Penguin Random House Best Achievement in Writing for her work as an outstanding lifetime contributor to increasing people's awareness of disability. In 2015 she received the George Robertson Award for her services to the publishing industry. In 1996 she won the Hall of Fame Award in The Rainbow Awards for contribution to the Gay and Lesbian Community. She is also a publisher and Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University, Townsville.
Website: http://susanscowblog.blogspot.com/
• http://susanspoliticalblog.blogspot.com/
Events
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30 Oct 2019 The Sacking of the Muses Book Launch at Readings, Carlton Poet and playwright, Jennifer Compton, will launch Susan Hawthorne's latest work of poetry - THE SACKING OF THE MUSES - at Readings Carlton. 6.00pm for 6.30pm start.
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31 Jul 2018 Dark Matters matter at Handsome Her, 206 Sydney Rd, Melbourne  Come and hear Susan Hawthorne talk about the book 'Dark Matters'. The event will be held from 3.30pm- 5pm on Tuesday 31st July at Handsome Her cafe at 206 ... more |
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29 May 2018 #MeToo: An evening of radical feminist politics and lesbian fiction at Burley Fisher Bookshop, 400 Kingsland Road, London The abuse of women under patriarchy takes many forms whether it be the use of women as reproductive breeders in surrogacy or the violence against lesbians wh... more |
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09 Nov 2014 Untamed Women Versus Imperial Roman Patriarchy at 35 Whalley Street Northcote  Susan shares new poems—drawing on the mythic archives about wolves and sheep—from her book Lupa and Lamb. Max shows her visual talk on how Goddess cultures of... more |
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08 Nov 2014 Untamed Women Versus Imperial Roman Patriarchy at 35 Whalley Street Northcote  November 9 Time: 8PM Susan shares new poems—drawing on the mythic archives about wolves and sheep—from her book Lupa and Lamb. Max shows her visual talk on how... more |
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31 Aug 2014 Spinifex authors to read at the launch of Plumwood Mountain Journal at Ceres environment park, Lee St. Brunswick, Victoria Spinifex authors, Susan Hawthorne, Patricia Sykes and Louise Crisp will read at the launch of Plumwood Mountain journal  |
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31 Aug 2014 Spinifex authors at the launch of Plumwood Mountain journal at Ceres environment park Susan Hawthorne, Patricia Sykes and Louise Crisp will be reading at the launch of the Plumwood Mountain Journal at Ceres Environment Park on March 9 Lee St, Brunswick.  |
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29 Jul 2014 Melbourne Writers Festival |
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15 Nov 2011 Classical Reception Scholars Conference at University of Melbourne Friday December 2: Susan Hawthorne is reading from her poetry collection Cow and giving a paper in the session immediately following WHERE: 1888 building at t... more |
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14 Aug 2011 Indian Banquet and Poetry Reading Evening |
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20 Apr 2011 Susan Hawthorne, feature author at the Riverina Poetry Caper Susan Hawthorne will host a dinner talk, The Poetry of Language and a workshop, Writing the Landscape over the Easter long weekend poetry festival. Other po... more |
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29 Mar 2011 Susan Hawthorne's latest collection, Cow: launch and poetry reading Susan Hawthorne's playful, mythological and erudite collection, Cow, will be launched by berni janssen at Collected Works, Tuesday March 29, 6 for 6.30pm. No... more |
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16 Feb 2011 Susan Hawthorne visiting New Zealand in March Pat Rosier, former editor of Broadsheet and author, will launch Susan Hawthorne's upcoming poetry collection, Cow in March. Susan is travelling to New Zealan... more |
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26 Aug 2010 Queensland Poetry at Brisbane Susan Hawthorne will be performing at the Queensland Poetry Festival this year. The festival runs from 27-29 August at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporar... more |
News
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30 Mar 2011 Cow in the media
The Weekend Post (Cairns) interviewed Susan Hawthorne about her recently released poetry collection Cow. Susan had this to say about using the cow as her in... more |
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05 Oct 2010 Earth's Breath shortlisted for Judith Wright Prize
Congratulations to Susan Hawthorne on the shortlisting of her poetry collection Earth's Breath for the Judith Wright Prize in the ACT Book of the Year Awards. |
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26 Jul 2010 Blog: a civil war against women
Read Susan Hawthorne's blog about rape in the Congo. |
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20 Jul 2010 Event: Susan Hawthorne at the Queensland Poetry Festival
Susan Hawthorne will be performing at the Queensland Poetry Festival this year. The festival runs from 27-29 August at the Judith Wright Centre of Contempor... more |
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06 Jul 2010 Susan Hawthorne on Julia Gillard
Susan Hawthorne – political scientist, author, poet and Spinifex director – has written a blog post for the Women's Media Centre about Julia Gillard and her... more |
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28 Jun 2010 Not that one woman can, but that every woman can
A few news clippings on Australia's first female PM: Susan Hawthorne has been quoted in the Sunday Age article about the ascension of Julia Gillard, "The fem... more |
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14 Jun 2010 Blog: A Quit Porn Campaign
Spinifex director Susan Hawthorne reflects on the damaging effects and pervasiveness of porn in contemporary society after attending the Stop Porn Conference in Boston. |
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10 Jun 2010 Event: Susan Hawthorne in San Francisco
Susan Hawthorne, author of last year's Earth's Breath, will be giving two readings in San Francisco this month.
Solo event at The Sitting Room, 16 June
Su... more |
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20 May 2010 A literary blogpost
Where eBooks tread, metadata will follow. We've been writing lots of metadata for all of our books recently, and Susan Hawthorne has written a poem about it. You can find it at our blog. |
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05 May 2010 Event: Pages to Poetry in May
Spinifex author Susan Hawthorne will take part in Readings’ May ‘Pages to Poetry’ event. Highlighting the recently released anthology Out of the Box: Contem... more |
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17 Mar 2010 Earth's Breath on Poetica
This Saturday 20 March, Susan Hawthorne's book Earth's Breath will be featured on Poetica on Radio National. The show will run at 3pm, and be repeated at 3p... more |
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08 Feb 2010 "I guess one natural disaster speaks to another."
After reading Earth's Breath, Jordie Albiston reflected on Black Saturday:
"I have spent this morning & yesterday in the grip of Earth's Breath. I have bee... more |
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02 Dec 2009 Art's Tryst with Nature - Eltham Bookshop
Susan Hawthorne will discusss art and nature with historian and biographer Janine Burke and curator Susan McCulloch at Eltham Bookshop, Thurs 10 December.
W... more |
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05 Nov 2009 Best Australian Poems 2009
Susan Hawthorne has been featured in this year's The Best Australian Poems 2009, edited by Robert Adamson, and published by Black Inc Books. Susan's poem, "C... more |
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24 Sep 2009 Susan Hawthorne on Feminist Peace Network
Susan Hawthorne has a new poem featured on the Feminist Peace Network's website. Read the poem on their website here. It is in reaction to the proposed mining of the Liverpool Plains in NSW. |
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07 Jul 2009 APC Poem of the Month
'Hamish, Australia, 8 March 2009' from Susan Hawthorne's new collection of eco-poetry, Earth's Breath is featured as this month's 'poem of the month' on the ... more |
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18 May 2009 Underground Talks @ New International Bookshop
Susan Hawthorne on 'Activism Makes the World Go Around'
Author, publisher, academic - and activist for 35 years - Susan will reflect on her work around issues... more |
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27 Apr 2009 Amazon de-ranking of lesbian and gay content
Read Spinifex Press Director Susan Hawthorne's piece on Amazon's de-ranking of content at: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8831 |
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19 May 2009 Dorothy Porter Tribute Reading
Susan Hawthorne will be participating in a tribute reading for Dorothy Porter on Thursday 28 May, 6 for 6.30pm at Collected Works. Other readers include: Kri... more |
Awards
1996 Hall of Fame Award, The Rainbow Awards for contribution to the Gay and Lesbian Community. 1991 Pandora New Venture Award, Women in Publishing International for Spinifex Press. 1989 Florence James Pandora Award for Outstanding Contribution to Women’s Publishing. 1988 Barbara Ramsden Award for editing (shared with Jackie Yowell), for work on Stories from the Warm Zone by Jessica Anderson.
Book Awards
Angels of Power: 1991, Australian Feminist Book Fortnight Favourite Cow: Finalist: Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry (USA) Cow: Shortlisted: Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, NSW Premier's Literary and History Awards Earth's Breath: Earth's Breath: 2010 Shortlisted, Judith Wright Prize The Falling Woman: 1992, The Australian's Best Books of the Year The Falling Woman: 1992 Top Twenty Title, Listener Women’s Book Festival (NZ) The Spinifex Quiz Book: 1993, Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing Wild Politics: 2002 Australian Book Review, best books
Books published by, or available from, Spinifex
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Out Now
 What characterizes women as a group is our colonized status. To be colonized is not to think for oneself...in short, not...  For the first time since he’d left the island he thought of the starlings massed at dusk in the winter trees behind the...  1999. Winter. Bondi. Harry’s been on the streets so long he could easily forget what time is. So Harry keeps an eye on...  In Defence of Separatism is a timely book. When it was first written in 1976, although it was an important subject of...
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