Biography:

Chris Mansell was born in Sydney, Australia. She has lived in Lae, New Guinea and attended schools in New Guinea and New South Wales, Australia. She has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney and studied at the Playwright’s Studio at NIDA. For most of her working life she has been involved in writing, performing, print production, editing, and in lecturing about writing.

Chris Mansell is widely published in literary journals in Australia and overseas. She has also given many live and recorded readings of her work. In 1978 she founded the literary magazine Compass poetry & prose which she edited until 1987.

Her first book of poems, Delta, appeared in 1978; her second, Head, Heart, & Stone, in 1982. While at Curtin University as writer in residence she completed Redshift/Blueshift which was published by Five Islands Press in 1988. The following year saw the release of Raptors Blue, her first audio cassette with music by Rob Cousins.

Chris Mansell's collection of poems, Shining like a Jinx, won the Amelia Chapbook Award, USA. In 1993 she won the Queensland Premier's Award for poetry for ‘Yarmul’.

From 1987 until early 1989 she was a part-time lecturer in creative writing at the University of Wollongong. In 1988 she attended the National Institute of Dramatic Arts' (NIDA) Playwright's Studio. In 1989 she was a full-time lecturer in creative writing at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur.

In 1990 she was writer in residence at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, and then, after a National Book Council tour in Queensland, she was writer in residence with Kaleidoscope Community Arts Company in Hobart, and later with Gambit Theatre Co in Launceston, Tasmania. In 1992, she was editor in residence at the Royal Australian Historical Society in Sydney, again lectured at the University of Western Sydney (Macarthur), and was writer in residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Centre in Perth.

In 1993 she took up a Writing Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. The following year she was awarded an Australia Council Community Writer's Fellowship in the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales. In 1995 she was a Community Artist with Shoalhaven City Council and wrote, with Mad Talent Theatre Group, their new play, Why? Her play Some Sunny Day written for the Kiama Council for the Australia Remembers project was performed there in October/November 1995.

Her collection of poems Day Easy Sunlight Fine was published in Hot Collation by Penguin Books in 1995 and was short-listed for the National Book Council’s Banjo Awards. In 1996 her children’s book, Little Wombat was published by New Holland. In 1997 she was writer in Residence with Flightpaths (Next Wave) in Wagga Wagga. She often works as a mentor to developing poets.

A new collection of poems called The Fickle Brat which was published on CD by IP (Brisbane) and will be published by Salmon Publishing (hardcopy) in 2003. She is publisher of PressPress which has also issued her Stalking the Rainbow in 2002. She is co-director of the Shoalhaven Poetry Festival and a boardmember of the South Coast Writers Centre.

Activity :

Published a number of books including:Head, Heart & Stone (Fling) Redshift/Blueshift (Five Islands); Day Easy Sunlight Fine (Penguin); Fickle Brat (Interactive Press); Stalking the Rainbow
(PressPress)

Performance :

Published widely in journals here & OS; veteran of many public readings/performances; currently leads workshops OS and at home and participates as a mentor in the mentorship scheme.