Paul Hetherington—Editor
Paul Hetherington is Professor of Writing at the University of Canberra, and inaugural Director of the International Poetry Studies Institute in the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research. He has written articles and papers on literary and cultural matters, including poetry, creativity, the use of new technologies and ways of providing access to cultural materials. He has published 11 full-length collections of poetry, including the verse novel Blood and old belief, Six different windows (UWA Publishing, 2013), Burnt umber (UWA Publishing, 2016) and Gallery of Antique Art (Recent Work Press, 2016). He won the 2014 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards (poetry) and was a finalist in the 2014 international Aesthetica creative writing competition. He was shortlisted for the 2013 Montreal International Poetry Prize and commended in the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize. He was also shortlisted for the international 2016 Periplum Book Competition (UK). He was awarded a place on the 2012 Australian Poetry Tour of Ireland; and a six-month residency at the BR Whiting Studio, Rome in 2015-16 by the Literature Board of the Australia Council.
Formerly publisher at the National Library of Australia, he edited the final three volumes of the Library’s four-volume edition of the diaries of the artist Donald Friend and was founding editor of the Library’s quarterly humanities and literary journal Voices. He is a former chair of the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and, since 2012, has been a member of the Board of Manning Clark House. Paul is the founder of the Prose Poetry Project and, with Jen Webb, is co-founder and inaugural co-editor of Axon: Creative Explorations.
Jen Webb—Editor
Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra. She has studied in South Africa, New Zealand, Canada and Australia and holds a PhD in cultural theory (art and society) and a DCA in writing (creativity and embodiment). Her academic interests focus on the relationship between the field of artistic production and the wider social domain, including how representations are made (in art, literature and news media) of human rights issues, conflict and crisis, and how individuals perceive themselves and their lived experience. Her current research includes two major projects—the first investigates the relationship between art and critical social moments; the other explores the relationship between creative practice and knowledge, focusing particularly on the role of poetry in generating thought and the possibility of ‘knowing’. Her books include Understanding representation (Sage, 2009), Researching creative writing (Frontinus Press, 2015), and Art and human rights: Contemporary Asian contexts (with Caroline Turner; Manchester UP, 2016). Her recent volumes of poetry include Sentences from the archive (RWP, 2016), and Moving targets (RWP 2018). Jen is inaugural Director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research and, with Paul Hetherington, is co-founder and inaugural co-editor of Axon: Creative Explorations.