JENNIFER COMPTON
Background
Jennifer Compton is a poet and playwright who also writes prose. She was born in New Zealand in 1949 and now lives in Wingello, a small town on the Southern Highlands of New South Wales.
Since the 70s, she has been a notable part of the literary and theatrical scene in Australia, beginning when her play Crossfire jointly won the Newcastle Playwriting Competition, was premiered at the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney and published by Currency Press.
In 1995 she was awarded the NSW Ministry For The Arts Writer's Fellowship, the first time this has been awarded for poetry. During her Fellowship year, she wrote a book of poetry Blue which was short-listed for the NSW Premier's Prize in 2001 and a stage play called The Big Picture which premiered at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney and was published by Currency Press.
She has been a guest at many Festivals in Australia, including the Sydney Writers Festival, the Spring Writing Festival, the Australian Poetry Festival, the Shoalhaven Poetry Festival and the Overload Poetry Festival. In 2005 she was a guest at the International Festival Of Poetry in Genoa.
In 2006, she was in residence at the Whiting Library in Rome and during this time was a guest at the Sarajevo Poetry Festival. In 2007 she will be a Fellow at the Ligurian Study Centre in Bogliasco.
Her previous book of poetry Parker & Quink was published by Ginninderra Press in 2005. And another book Barefoot is almost ready for publication. She has a novel in progress called All The Time In The World.