Bio

Meera Atkinson is a Sydney-based literary writer and academic. Traumata, (creative nonfiction) is forthcoming on UQP in April 2018, and her academic monograph, The Poetics of Transgenerational Trauma, was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2017.

Meera was the recipient of the Varuna Dr Dark Flagship Fellowship for 2017, awarded for non-fiction of outstanding quality in social, historical or political writing. She was a winner of the Griffith Review Contributors’ Circle competition 2016 and Emerging Writers’ Prize in 2011, and was shortlisted for The Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate, Victorian Premier’s Awards in 2007.

She teaches creative writing at the University of Sydney. 

biblio
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Books/edited books

2018, (Forthcoming) Traumata, University of Queensland Press (UQP), Brisbane.

2017, The Poetics of Transgenerational Trauma, Bloomsbury Academic, New York. 

2013, Traumatic Affect (co-edited with Michael Richardson), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne. 

1995, Map of Skin: selected poems (chapbook), Pink Flamingo, Sydney. 


​Literary (short fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry)

2016, ‘Souvenir’, Mascara Literary Review, issue 19, September. 

2016, ‘Ant familias’ and ‘Black-eared cuckoo’, Plumwood Mountain: An Australian Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics, vol. 3, no. 1 (ed.                      Trisha Dearborn), (online).

2015, ‘Black-eared cuckoo’, Bimblebox 153 Birds, Bimblebox Art Project.

2015, ‘Darlinghurst nights’, Verity La, (online).

2013, ‘Up-skirt’, Griffith REVIEW 40: Women & Power, Text, Melbourne, pp. 220-229.

2013, ‘Dust storm’, Meniscus, (online).

2012, ‘Confessions of a vegetarian’, 2013 Voiceless Anthology, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 1-21.

2011, ‘Child’s play: the biggest Sherbet fans ever’, Griffith REVIEW 33: Such is Life, Text, Melbourne, pp. 253-261. 

2010, ‘Writing a Dear John letter while reading Abraham and Torok*’, The Best Australian Poems 2010 (ed. Robert Adamson), Black Inc,                      Melbourne, pp. 4-5.

2010, ‘Waiting for dad-o’, Meanjin Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 2, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 146-150.

2009, ‘Have relationships like rock stars: a Twitter exposé’, Meanjin Quarterly, vol. 68, no. 3, Melbourne University Publishing, Melbourne,                  pp. 94-102.

2007, ‘Désincarné/disembodied’, The Best Australian Stories 2007 (ed. Robert Drewe), Black Inc, Melbourne, pp. 261-276.

2007, ‘From a moving car’, A Revealed Life: Australian Writers and Their Journeys in Memoir (ed. Julianne Schultz), ABC Books, Sydney, pp.                96-103.

2007, ‘My Mount Everest’, Griffith REVIEW 17: Staying Alive, ABC Books, Sydney, 77-113.

2007, ‘The exiled child’, Griffith REVIEW 15: Divided Nation, ABC Books, Sydney, pp. 85-98.

2007, ‘The exiled child’ re-printed as ‘Home is where the pain is’, The Age (‘Insight’ essay), Fairfax, Melbourne, 17 February, (online).
 
2006, ‘Most people are good’, Going Down Swinging, no. 24, Melbourne, pp. 34-35.  2006, ‘Désincarné/disembodied’, Etchings, no. 1, Ilura                  Press, Melbourne,  pp. 75-108.

2006, ‘Girls talk’, Griffith REVIEW 11: Getting Smart, ABC Books, Sydney, pp. 137-184.  2006, ‘Girls talk’ re-printed as ‘Sinister sisters’, The Age              (education section cover story), Fairfax, Melbourne, 17 April. 

2005, ‘From a moving car,’ Griffith REVIEW 9: Up North, ABC Books, Sydney, pp. 179-198.

2005, ‘Projection’, Blue Dog, vol. 4, no. 7, Journal of the Australian Poetry Centre, Melbourne, p. 59.

2004, ‘Invisible moon’, Griffith REVIEW 6: Our Global Face, ABC Books, Sydney, pp. 165-173. 

2004, ‘Beauty and the bêtê noire’, Griffith REVIEW 4: Making Perfect Bodies, ABC Books, Sydney, pp. 109-120.

1999, ‘Rose sellers, drunks and stray cats’ and ‘Pearls’, Mangrove Online Journal: Mud Issue, University of Queensland English Department,               Brisbane. 

1998, ‘The closed sign’, ‘This is not my dream’ and ‘The parting song’, Mangrove Online Journal: Sweet Issue, University of Queensland                         English Department, Brisbane. 

1997, ‘To the girl’, Heat, no. 5, Giramondo, Sydney, p. 114-115.   1992, ‘This is no time to purr’, Good Time Great Place, UTS Anthology, Sydney,
           p. 110. 

1992, ‘Sweet pain’, Hermes, Sydney University, Sydney, p. 44.

1992, ‘Hot grief’, ‘What-love-poem’ and ‘Charm’, Vertigo, no. 10, Sydney.  1992, ‘I don’t trust you like that’, Plexus, no. 34, UTS Union                               Magazine, Sydney.  

1991, ‘Say la v’, Plexus, no. 24, UTS Union Magazine, Sydney. 

1991, ‘Lost lane’, Plexus, no. 21, 'Lost lane', UTS Union Magazine, Sydney.  

1991, ‘Target: Hiroshima day photo exhibition’, Its Own Mirror, UTS Anthology, Sydney, p. 45.  

1991, ‘Old summer’, Earth Wings: The Outrider 91 Almanac, Brisbane. 

1987, ‘Damien’, Up From Below: Poems of the 80s, Redress Press, Sydney, p. 8. 

1987, ‘It passes, one kiss, any satisfaction’, Blue Light Lounge, Sydney.

1986, ‘Untitled’, ‘Rose in the junkyard’, and 'Where is my vegetable love?’, These Walls This Floor, no. 103, Poetry Australia, Sydney, p. 13-14. 

1985, ‘Charm’, House of Words: The Very Last Neos, Gleebooks, Sydney, p. 27.  

1984, ‘This is the planet’ and ‘I hide’, New Pressings, no. 96, Poetry Australia, Sydney, pp. 16-17.


Refereed journal articles/book chapters

2017,  ‘Australia is a crime scene: Natalie Harkin’s intervention on national numbness and the national ideal’, TEXT Journal    
             of Writing and Writing Courses, Special Issue: Writing Trauma, edited by Bridget Haylock and Suzanne Hermanoczki.

2015, ‘Transgenerational trauma and cyclical haunting in Pat Barker’s Regeneration Trilogy’, Cultural Studies Review: Interventions, vol. 21,                 no. 4, pp. 58-75.

2014, ‘Strange body bedfellows: écriture féminine and the poetics of trans-trauma’, TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses, vol. 18,                 no. 1, Australasian Association of Writing Programs, (online).

2014, ‘A suite of creatures’, Animal Studies Journal, vol. 3, no. 1, Australasian Animal Studies Association, (online).

2013, ‘Animal poetics: singing the scorched tongue’, Southerly: Lyre/Liar, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 114-121.

2013, ‘Introduction: at the nexus’ (co-authored with Michael Richardson) in M Atkinson and M Richardson (eds), Traumatic Affect,                               Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, UK, pp. 1-21.

2013, ‘Channeling the spectre and translating phantoms: hauntology and the spooked text’, in M Atkinson and M Richardson                                         (eds), Traumatic Affect, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, UK, pp. 247-270.

2009, ‘The blonde goddess’, M/C Journal: A Journal of Media and Culture, vol. 12, no. 2, QUT Creative Industries, (online).


Journalism and professional writing

2018, 'Fear of a Vegan Planet,' The Neighbourhood Paper, March 5. 

2017, ‘Relatively sheltered’, The Neighbourhood Paper, June 11. 

2017, ‘Read, listen, understand: why non-indigenous Australians should read First Nations writing’, The Conversation 'Arts + Culture', July  5. 

2015, ‘On Carpentaria’, Copyright Agency Reading Australia Program, (online).

2006, ‘In conversation: Luke Davies’, Storyline, no. 14, Australian Writers’ Guild, Sydney.

2006, ‘In conversation: Alice Bell & Ann Turner’, Storyline, no. 16, Australian Writers’ Guild, Sydney. 

2006, ‘Invisible heroes’, New Vegetarian and Natural Health, published by vegetarian and vegan societies from around Australia, Sydney. 

2005, ‘Dailies from Project Greenlight’, Storyline, no. 11, Australian Writers’ Guild, Sydney.

2004, ‘Animal organ transplants provide false hope’, The Canberra Times, Canberra: 2 March 22.  

2002, ‘America the scapegoat’, Afterwords: Stories and Reports From 9/11 and Beyond, Atria Books, New York. 

2002, ‘Can you riverdance for me, honey?’, Salon.com, San Franscisco, (online). 

2002, ‘X Marks the Spot’, Beat Magazine, Melbourne, 11 December.  

2002, ‘The gospel of Gabba Gabba Hey’, Beat Magazine, Melbourne, 12 June.  

2001, ‘America the scapegoat’, Salon.com, San Francisco, (online). 

2001, ‘Postcard from New York’, Writing Queensland, Brisbane.

1989, ‘Vivisection: how cut up are you?’, Honi Soit, no. 9, Students Representative Council of the University of Sydney, Sydney.  


Sound

2015, Theories of Everything & Thomas the Woodcutter (album, written and performed with collaborators), Microcultures, Paris.

2013, Excerpt from ‘Luna Alaska’, Varuna, The National Writers’ House Writer-A-Day, (online).

2011, ‘Child’s play: the biggest Sherbet fans ever’ (excerpt), First Person: The Book Show, Radio National, Australian Broadcasting                                  Commission, Sydney.

1987, This Is The Planet (solo album of original poetry and songs produced by Rob Younger), Citadel Records, Sydney. 

1987, ‘Dead girl’ (co-writer song lyrics), Dropping like flies, The New Christs, Citadel Records, Sydney. 

1986, ‘Stoneage Cinderella’ (co-writer song lyrics), Free dirt, Died Pretty, Citadel Records, Sydney.