Poets

Alison Croggon (born 1962) is a contemporary Australian poet, playwright, fantasy novelist, and librettist.

Life

Born in the Transvaal, South Africa, Alison Croggon's family moved to England before settling in Australia, first in Ballarat then Melbourne. She has worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning Herald. Her first volume of poetry, This is the Stone, won the Anne Elder Award and the Mary Gilmore Prize. Her novella Navigatio was recommended in the 1995 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award and all four novels of the fantasy genre series Pellinor have been published. She also edits the online writing magazine Masthead and writes theatre criticism.

Croggon has also written libretti for Michael Smetanin's operas Gauguin and The Burrow which premiered respectively at the 2000 Melbourne Festival and Perth Festival, produced by ChamberMade. Other poems by her have been set to music by Smetanin, Christine McCombe, Margaret Legge-Wilkinson and Andrée Greenwell. Her plays have been produced by the Melbourne Festival, The Red Shed Company (Adelaide) and ABC Radio.

Career

Her poetry has been published widely in anthologies and magazines in Australia and overseas. Her most recent poetry publication is Theatre (Salt Publishing 2008). Other titles include Ash (Cusp Books, Los Angeles 2007); November Burning (Vagabond Press Rare Objects Series, Sydney, 2004); Mnemosyne, (Wild Honey Press, Ireland, 2001); The Common Flesh (New and Selected Poems) (Arc P..