Sharon Kernot
A little about me and my writing...
I have an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide and a PhD from Flinders University. I've worked for TAFE, the University of South Australia and Flinders University, and for three years I was the Writer-in-Residence for people with disabilities at Writers SA.
I've conducted workshops for writing groups, libraries and schools, and judged poetry and short story competitions. My poems and short stories have been published widely in Australia and overseas in anthologies and journals including Best Australian Poems, Island, Verandah, Mascara, Southerly, Meniscus, Aesthetica, Text Journal, SurVision, the Australian Poetry Journal and Australian Love Stories.
My short fiction and poetry has been shortlisted and longlisted for a number of awards including the Whitmore Press Poetry Prize. Bauhinia Literary Awards, the Furphy Prize, the University of Canberra’s International Poetry Prize, the Bridport Short Story Prize, Aesthetica's Creative Writing Awards and the James Tate International Poetry Prize. And in 2019 my poem 'Eating Type' won the Matthew Rocca Prize for poetry.
Underground Road, my debut novel, was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival of Literature Awards Unpublished Manuscript Prize and later published by Wakefield Press and my verse novel, The Art of Taxidermy, was shortlisted for the 2017 Text Prize
and published by Text in 2018. Since then, it has been shortlisted and longlisted for a number of awards including the CBCA, the Inky Awards, the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, the Prime Minister's Literary Awards and the REAL Awards. My latest novel, Birdy, which is also published by Text, will be released on January 30, 2024. I'm currently working on a new verse novel, which recently received a project grant from Arts SA and a Varuna Residential Fellowship.
Over the years, I've had quite a few different jobs to fund my study, writing and travel. I've worked as a compositor, a typesetter, a financial counsellor, a community worker, an editor, an access worker, a writing coach and mentor, a tutor, a mental health worker, an editor and co-publisher of chapbooks, and for a very short time when I ran out of money while travelling I ironed sheets for a pension on a Greek Island.
Apart from reading and writing, I also love birds, animals, art and spending time in nature.