Year of Residency: 2020

Recent literary awards and residencies

• 2016: —Novella Panthers and the Museum of Fire long-listed for the Stella Prize.
• 2010: — Joint residency with composer Stephen Adams on the Artists’ Residency
Program at Bundanon, NSW, Australia (October 2010).
• 2000: — Short story “Letter for Vito” short-listed for the University of Canberra
National Short Story Competition.

List of recent creative works

• 2020: —Short story “The beautiful sister” scheduled to be published in
Passages North, Issue 41, Spring 2020, Northern Michigan University, USA.
• 2019: —Microfiction “Jamming” published in Shuffle, edited by C. Atherton,
Spineless Wonders, Strawberry Hills. ISBN: 978-1-925052-43-5, and
performed at the Newcastle Writers’ Festival.
• 2016-18:—Microfiction pieces “Invisible writing”, “In search of a machine” and “At
the very edge” performed at a variety of Little Fiction events, for Spineless
Wonders, including Sydney Writers’ Festival readings.
• 2015: —Novella Panthers and the Museum of Fire published by Spineless Wonders,
Strawberry Hills. ISBN: 978-1-925052-14-5.
• 2010: —Prose poem for the audio piece “Among the cycas”, with audio effects by
Australian composer Stephen Adams, broadcast on ABC Radio National’s
Sound Quality, 26 November 2010.
• 2009: —Novel Since the Accident published by Ginninderra Press, Port Adelaide.
ISBN: 978-1-74027-563-7
• 2005: —Short story “The umbrella” published in HEAT 9, New Series 2005.
• 2005: —Libretto of chamber opera work A Dictionary of Maladies, in collaboration
with composer Michael Schneider: chamber performance at the Zeughaus
Lenzburg, for the Lenzburg Festival of Music, Switzerland (28 August).

Other recently published works

• 2013-15: —Refereed academic publications, including:
o “Eating disorders ‘explained’: The Gothic underworld of Marya Hornbacher’s
Wasted” Aeternum, Volume 2, Issue 2 (2015).
o “The agitated shell: Thinspiration and the Gothic experience of eating
disorders” M/C Journal, Volume 17, Issue 4 (2014).
o “The maddening in Hornbacher’s Wasted: Digression as a performance of the
eating disordered body” in The Creative Manoeuvres: Making, Saying, Being
Papers – The Refereed Proceedings Of the 18th Conference Of The
Australasian Association Of Writing Programs, Edited by Shane Strange and
Kay Rozynski. ISBN 978-0-9807573-7-8. Published by AAWP (2013).
• 2012: —Review of The Darkest Little Room, by Patrick Holland, Mascara
Literary Review, Issue 12, November (2012).

Recent qualifications and training

• 2019-: —Advanced clinical training in contemporary Gestalt therapy, PACFA-
(Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia) accredited, at the
Relational Institute, Australia. (Commenced April 2019)
• 2018: —PhD from the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney
University.
• 2018: —updated Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training, the Sydney
Institute of TAFE, Ultimo College (TAE40110), previously updated in 2012.
• 2018: —Foundational training in contemporary Gestalt therapy, at The Relational
Institute, Australia.
• 2007: —Research Masters: Masters of Arts in Writing from the University of
Technology, Sydney.

Conference presentations

• 2018: —“The confounding work of teleology: Trauma, catharsis and the end-driven
plot”, 3 July, at Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities, at the School of
Arts in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Kent, United Kingdom.
• 2015: —“Overlooking the body: The gagging reflex in theoretical writings about
culture and eating disorders”, 3 July, Australasian Association for Literature:
Literature and Affect Conference, University of Melbourne, Australia.
• 2015: —“Eating disorders ‘explained’: the Gothic underworld of Marya
Hornbacher’s Wasted”, 21 January, Gothic Association of New Zealand and
Australia (GANZA), Novotel Sydney, Australia.
• 2013: —“Starving in the crypt: A reading of Matthew Lewis’s The Monk”, 6
December, Liberty and Limits: 1789-1920, Macquarie University, Australia.
• 2013: —“The maddening in Hornbacher’s Wasted: Digression as a performance of
the eating disordered body”, 26 November, Creative Manoeuvres,
Australasian Association of Writing Programs, University of Canberra,
Australia.

Recent professional experience

• 2019: —Presenting two-hour professional development sessions on the way trauma
affects the learning experience in the classroom, for staff in the Languages
Department, NSW TAFE, Ultimo Campus.
• 2012-19: —Part time casual teacher of ESOL (English to speakers of other
languages): including Cert IV English for academic purposes and Cert III
Advanced English for further study skills, Languages Department, NSW
TAFE, Ultimo campus. Previously taught ESOL at Petersham (1997-2011).
• 2015: —Research assistant, Australian Catholic University, Sydney: assisting Dr
Magdalena Zolkos in the publication preparation for a special issue of the
academic journal, Angelaki.
• 2012-13: —Part time lecturer in Novel Writing for Graduate Diploma and Masters
students at The Centre for New Writing in the Faculty of Arts and Social
Sciences, at the University of Technology, Sydney.
• 2001-2: —Part time lecturer in Practicum, in the Faculty of Education, at the
University of Technology, Sydney.

Artist statement

Writing for me is a way to set words into a multi-dimensional shaping of voice, place and
time that has its own inner liveliness and performative moment. I love texts that move and
loosen any ready ideas about the way we humans relate or, more often, misunderstand each
other and ourselves.

Links

• Q & A: https://shortaustralianstories.com.au/q-a-with-jen-craig/
• Stella Prize 2016 longlist feature: https://thestellaprize.com.au/2016/02/jen-craigpanther
• Book trailer for Panthers and the Museum of Fire: https://vimeo.com/133882373
• Meanjin review, by Emmett Stinson, of Panthers and the Museum of Fire:
https://meanjin.com.au/blog-what-im-reading/emmett-stinson/
• “Jamming” performance with Stephen Adams:
https://soundcloud.com/texturetext/adams-jamming-jen-craig
• Blog: http://beinginlieu.blogspot.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/absurdenticements/