Catherine Cole


Catherine Cole is an Australian author and academic. She lives between Australia, South West France and the UK. Cole's work in the fields of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and academic writing has been widely published both in Australia in the UK, US, China and Vietnam.
Her book Dry Dock was a finalist for the 2000 Ned Kelly Award for Best First Novel. In 2015, her short story "Forever Re-Starting" was commended for the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize. Cole also has judged some of Australia's leading writing prizes.
As a professor of creative writing at both the University of Wollongong and RMIT University, Melbourne and as a senior lecturer at University of Technology, Sydney, Cole has supervised some of Australia's leading and emerging writers in their postgraduate degrees.

Literary career

Cole began her literary career publishing poetry in a range of Australian poetry journals with the support of her mentor, A.D. Hope, whom she later wrote about in her memoir, The Poet Who Forgot. Her first published prose fiction was short story, followed by the novels Dry Dock, Skin Deep, then The Grave at Thu Le, which examines French colonialism in Vietnam.
Cole's Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks, published in 1996, explores the lure of crime fiction and its increasing popularity across international cultures. In 2009, Cole, along with Vicki Karaminas and Peter McNeil, co-edited Fashion in Fiction, Fashion in Textiles, Television and Film. In 2010, her lifelong fascination with Vietnam was further explored in the collection The Perfume River: Writing from Vietnam.
Some of Cole's recent short stories have been published in Australian journals and anthologies and have been produced by and read on BBC Radio 4.

Residences

Cole has won, been shortlisted, and/or been commended for the following awards:
Cole also has judged some of Australia's leading writing prizes, including the Age Book of the Year, the Barbara Jefferis Award, and The National Jazz Writing Competition.

Publications

Books

Non-fiction

  • Fiction

  • Short story collections

  • Short stories

  • Her Annotated Hair, 2009, Trunk: Hair #1

    Poetry

  • Essays and reviews

  • Other works

  • Travelling Partners: Using Literary Studies to Support Creative Writing about Real Spaces Conference of the Australian Association of Writing Programs. Eds. Brien D., Cole C., & Freiman M.

  • Radio

  • The Road to Austinmer Beach, 2014 June, BBC Radio Four