Jennifer Compton

Jennifer Compton is a New Zealand-born Australian poet and playwright.

Biography

She was born in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1949 and attended Wellington East Girls' College. In the 1970s, she emigrated to Sydney, Australia, with her husband Matthew O'Sullivan. They now live in Carrum in Melbourne.
After attending the NIDA Playwrights Studio, her play No Man's Land jointly won the Newcastle Playwriting Competition in 1974. It was premiered at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney in 1975 and published by Currency Press in 1976. Compton returned from Australia to Wellington for several years at the end of 1975 and in August 1976 appeared in the play 'Fanshen' at Unity Theatre. In October 1976, Compton was awarded a $4000 bursary by the New Zealand Literary Fund. This bursary was awarded by the Literary Fund to enable writers to write full-time.
Her stage play The Big Picture was premiered at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney in 1997 and was published by Currency Press in 1999.
She has mostly written short fiction and poetry. A book of poems, Parker & Quink, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2004, and another, Barefoot, was published by Picaro Press in 2010. Barefoot was short listed for the John Bray Poetry Award at the Adelaide Festival in 2012.
Compton won the 2005 Peter Blazey Fellowship for "Who Doesn't Want Me to Dance".
This City was published by Otago University Press in July 2011 and won the Kathleen Grattan Award in New Zealand.

Plays

All Good Children Go to Heaven They're Playing Our Song All the Time in the World Julia's Song : A One Act Play

''The Big Picture''

Poetry collections

From the Other Woman Blue Brick: And Other Poems Parker & Quink Roma Barefoot This City Ungainly Now You Shall Know

''The Moment, Taken''