Prof Catherine Cole
The Perfume River
Fashion in Fiction
The Poet Who Forgot
The Grave at Thu Le
Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks
Skin Deep
Dry Dock
Research: Memory and Memoir
Research: Colonial and Post Colonial Studies
Research: Australian Writers and Writing
Research: Poetry and Poetics
Research: Vietnam's Literature and Culture
Staff Profile
Professor Catherine Cole
Professor Catherine Cole is Professor of Creative Writing and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Creative Arts, Wollongong University, NSW, Australia.
Professor Cole previously worked at RMIT University in Melbourne, University of Technology, Sydney and the University of UNSW. She has academic relationships with the University of East Anglia, Norwich and the Writers Centre, Norwich and the Iowa Writers Workshop as well as universities in Vietnam. She reviews the writing and creative arts programs of universities in Australia and internationally. She also advises tertiary and secondary institutions about teaching and learning in the creative arts.
Biography:
Catherine Cole has published three novels, (Dry Dock, Skin Deep (Harper Collins 1999 and Duffy and Snellgrove, 2002) and The Grave at Thu Le, Picador, 2006), two non-fiction books, (Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction (Curtin University Press, 1996) and The Poet Who Forgot (UWA Press, 2008) She is the editor of the anthology, The Perfume River: Writing from Vietnam (UWA Press, 2010) and co-editor with McNeil and Karaminas of Fashion in Fiction: Text and Clothing in Literature, Film and Television, (Berg UK and USA, May 2009). Cole also has published poetry, short stories, essays and reviews.
Cole has extensive academic, writing and industry connections in the fields of creative practice and literature. She is currently leading a research project on creative communities which examines the role of UNESCO's Cities of Literature in conjunction with Melbourne, Iowa and Norwich. She works extensively with writers and writers' associations in Vietnam, particularly on the promotion of contemporary Vietnamese literature world-wide. She is a project coordinator and journal editor for The Australian Literary Compendium, a co-project with ABC Radio National which develops web-based resources on Australian Literature for schools and universities in Australia and internationally.
Cole is a former member of the Australian Research Council's Excellence in Research Australia trial committee in Humanities and the Creative Arts and has provided expert advice to a range of universities on their research and creative practice activities. She is a regular book reviewer, participant in Australian and international writers' festivals and a judge of major national book awards.
She has extensive experience of teaching in a number of Australian universities. She has been a Writing and Research Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK, a resident of the Keesing Studio, Cité International des Arts in Paris, and an Asialink writer-in-residence in Hanoi, Vietnam.
As a former member of the Committee of Management and the Executive of the Australian Society of Authors, Cole has links with Australian writers, publishers and critics. She is a member of the Board of the Eleanor Dark Foundation (Varuna Writers House) and the Board of the University of Adelaide's Writing Program. She is a founding member of the Asia Pacific Writing Partnership. She has judged teaching awards and examined theses in the fields of Australian writers and writing.
Qualifications
- Doctorate of Creative Arts, UTS, (2003)
- From Davitt to Deconstruction: Politics in Contemporary Crime Fiction ( Published as Private Dicks and feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction)
- Masters Degree, UNE, (1984)
- All the Many Facetted Squalor: Images of Ireland in the Short Stories of James Joyce and George Moore
- Graduate Dip of Adult Education, SCU, (1996 )
- Bachelor of Arts, UNE, (1982)
- Associate Diploma of Writing and Editing, RMIT, (1994)
Research Interests:
Catherine Cole's research activities include:
CREATIVE PRACTICE AND CREATIVE COMMUNITIES
- creative practice and the teaching of creative writing
- the ways in which social and cultural practices have fashioned literary movements
- literary communities and creative practice, especially through designated literary spaces such as UNESCO Cities of Literature
COLE Catherine and NELSON, Anitra, ‘Literary communities: writers’ practices and networks’, Conference Proceedings, 15th annual AAWP conference, 2010, http://aawp.org.au/files/Cole&Nelson.doc.pdf
COLE, Catherine, "How the University Workshop Hinders New Writers from Engaging with Ideas (And What to Do About It)," by Catherine Cole
http://www.mid.muohio.edu/segue/wow/Cole%20-%20WorkshopModel.swf
COLE, Catherine, "Teaching James Joyce's Short Fiction: Dubliners in the Creative Writing Classroom", Eureka Studies in Teaching Short Fiction 7, ii (Spring 2007): 45-52.
COLE, Catherine, ‘Learning to Write’, http://www.griffithreview.com/edition-26-stories-for-today/233/744.html
WRITERS AND WRITING
- Critical and theoretical studies of Australian, European and SE Asian writers
MCNEIL, P., KARAMINAS, V., COLE, Catherine, (eds) Fashion in Fiction, Text and Clothing in Literature, Film and Television, Berg, Oxford and New York, 2009
VIETNAM’S HISTORY AND CULTURE
- Vietnamese literature especially the manner in which writers write within their cultural and political contexts
- contemporary Vietnamese Literature
COLE, Catherine, (ed) The Perfume River: Writing from Vietnam, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2010
COLE, Catherine, ‘The Third and Fourth Countries’, Griffith Review, Edition 6, 2004
See: http://www.griffithreview.com/images/stories/edition_articles/
ed6_pdfs/coleed6.pdf
COLE, Catherine, The Grave at Thu Le, Picador, Sydney, 2006
MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA
- memory and nostalgia and the manner in which these have fashioned literary movements, especially in a post-colonial context
COLE, Catherine, The Poet Who Forgot, University of Western Australia Press, Perth, 2008
COLE and BERRY, History and Postmemory in Contemporary Vietnamese Writing, Text Special Issue 10, 2011, http://www.textjournal.com.au
See: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/lines-between-us-and-the-void/story-e6frg8no-1111116130555
See: http://www.smh.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-poet-who-forgot/2008/04/11/1207856816205.html
CRIME FICTION AND CONTEMPORARY CRIME NARRATIVES
COLE, Catherine, Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction, Curtin University, Perth, 2005
COLE, Catherine, Skin Deep, Duffy and Snellgrove, NSW, 2005
COLE, Catherine, Dry Dock, Duffy and Snellgrove, NSW, 2002 and Harper Collins, Sydney, 1999
Publications:
Publication List (sourced via UOW Database)
Esteem Factors:
Award/Prize Nomination
- Short listed, Melbourne University, Peter Blazey Prize for a non-fiction manuscript for The Poet who Forgot
- Nominated for ATOM Award, Writers on Writing DVD
- Highly Commended for the Asher Award, Melbourne University The Grave at Thu Le
- Nominated Ned Kelly Award for best non-fiction book about crime fiction for Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks
- Davitt Award, Sisters in Crime, Reader Award for Skin Deep, best crime novel of 2002
- Nominated for Ned Kelly Award, Skin Deep
Conference organisation or management
Conference convenor, AAWP Conference, RMIT, 2010
Strange Bedfellows or Perfect Partners: The Role of Literary Studies in Creative Writing programs
Co-Convenor, 2010 Drawing Out, a cross-disciplinary conference on drawing and the wider arts, RMIT University, Melbourne
Co-Convenor, 2007 Fashion in Fiction, HSS and DAB conference, with Dr Vicki Karaminas, Professor Peter McNeill
Elected Member/Representative
- Board member, Varuna (The Eleanor Dark Foundation)
- Academic Board, RMIT and UTS
- Former Executive member, Australian Society of Authors
- Former member, Small Press Underground Co-operative (SPUNC), Melbourne
Fellowships
- Keesing Studio, Cite International des Arts, Paris
- Asialink residency, Hanoi, Vietnam
- Jazz Writer in Residence, Victoria
- Visiting Writing Fellow, University of East Anglia
Key Note Address/Invited Presentation
- 'The Bluebeard Lure of Crime Fiction', Re-Enchantment, ACMI, Melbourne, 12 March, 2011
- 'Australia's relationship with Vietnam's Writers', Contemporary Concerns for Vietnams Writers, Hanoi Writers' Association, Hanoi, January, 2010
- Cole, 'Multi-Skilled: The Writer, Teacher, Researcher in the Academy', Blending Research and Creativity, Australian Association of Writing Programs, Perth, 25 – 27 November, 2005
- Cole, Vietnam: 'From Terror to Tourism', UTS Speaks, 8 November, 2005
- Cole, 'Reading and Writing Violence: On Succumbing to Narrative Evil', Violence and Popular Culture Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, September 30 – 1 October, 2005
Review of manuscripts
Cole has reviewed for The Age, The Australian and The Sydney Morning Herald.
She has judged The Age Book of the Year, The Barbara Jefferis Award, The Extempore Jazz Writing Award and the Peter Blazey award.
Supervision:
- Jennifer Levasseur : Stefan Zweig
- Phillipa Jane Newling : Re-telling Belonging - memoir of Taree and place.
- Caroline Van De Pol : Truth in Memoir
- Shane Maloney : History Truth and War
- Janne Lindrum : The Uncrowned King
- Lucinda Strahan : I know you are, but what am I?
- Graham Pope : 'Oars Rest': The production of a creative artefact and critical exegesis to examine the choices writers make in the composing process for historical fiction.
External
- Anna Funder (UTS) DCA, 'On Courage'
- Ashley Hay (UTS) DCA 'The Railway Librarian'
Completions
- David Garrett The Accidental Entrepreneur: How ABC Music became more than Broadcasting
- Anna Funder (UTS) DCA, 'All that I am'
- Ashley Hay (UTS) DCA 'The Railway Librarian'
- Kylie Boltin (RMIT) Phd, “Multicultural Conversations: The Principle of Multiple Narratives”
- Tara Mokhtari (RMIT) Phd, "Representations of Death in the Poetry of Stevie Smith"
- Alice Ulgezer (RMIT) MA, "The transformative power of text, and the Sufi poetic The Mathnawi of Rumi"
- Sunita Singh (RMIT) MA, "Metaphor and the Postcolonial Novel"
- Charlotte Wood (UTS) MA, "Ethics and Fiction"
- Pam Newton (UTS) MA, "Qualia and Crime Fiction"
- Sarah Attfield (UTS) Phd, "Working Class Poetry"
- Adam Aitken (UTS) Phd, "The Hybrid Memoir"
- Catherine Le Nevez (UTS) Phd, "Pseudonym and False Identity in Fiction"
Professional Activities:
GRANTS
Cole has received $363,000 in project and research funding including:
- Writers in residence, University of Wollongong, Copyright Agency, UOW, $60,000
- Memory and Creative Practice in Vietnam, Design Research Institute, RMIT, 2009, $6,000
- Writers in Residence Project, 2008, Copyright Agency, RMIT University, $90,000
- Australian Literary Compendium, 2007, Copyright Agency, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, RMIT and UTS, to develop a national archive of writers, writing research and audiovisual resources for the national development of Australian writing, $150,000
- Asia Pacific Writing Partnership, 2006, Cultural Fund, Copyright Agency to establish the Asia Pacific New Writing Partnership, and develop research and promotional strategies for Australian and Asia-Pacific Writing. $20,000 (with Camens, APWP)
- Beyond Khe Sanh: Australia’s Literary Engagement with Vietnam, 2006, to develop a Vietnam research project and build an early career research network in Vietnam studies. $13,000
- Fiction project, 2005 Literature Board, Australia Council, New Work, to complete a novel set in Australia in the 1950s and 1960s, culminating in the Vietnam War, $15,000
- Indigenous Writers Project, 2004, Australia Council for the Arts, Literature Board, Aboriginal Writers Project, to establish protocols for working with indigenous writers and communities and to develop writing strategies for emerging indigenous writers, $9,000
Awards:
RESIDENCIES AND VISITING FELLOWS
- Jazz Writer in residence, Australian Jazz festival, Wangarratta, Victoria, 2010
- Visiting Writing and Research Fellow, University of East Anglia, UK
- Visiting Academic, Monash University, Melbourne, October, 2005
- Writing resident, 2002/03 Australia Council Literature Board, Nancy Keesing Studio, Cité International des Arts, Paris, including $13,000 stipend
- Writing resident, 2001/2002 Asialink Residency, Hanoi, Vietnam in conjunction with The Gioi Publishing 1996
- Writing resident, Varuna, The Writers House, Katoomba, (1996, 2001, 2004)
