Diane Fahey – July 12 2020

Diane is an award-winning poet and recipient of several writing grants and fellowships. She has held  writing residencies in Australia and internationally, including Italy, Scotland and Ireland. Diane has taught at Colleges in Melbourne and lectured in Literature at the University of South Australia. She holds a BA DipEd and Master of Arts from the University of Melbourne and a PhD in Creative Writing from Western Sydney University. Diane began publishing her poetry in Australian and international poetry journals and anthologies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has been poetry editor of the journal Voices. She has written about experiencing strong depression in her early life, an illness which writing poetry helped her work through. The Wing Collection: New and Selected Poems presents an overview of her distinctive contribution to Australian poetry over 30 years, during which time she has been interested in poetic rewritings of Greek mythology (Metamorphoses; Listening to a Far Sea), fairy tales (The Sixth Swan) and ecological themes (Mayflies in Amber; Sea Wall and River Light). Her 12 poetry collections include The Body in Time which is published together with Jordie Albiston’s Nervous Arcs.

Voices from the Honeycomb
Jacaranda Press, 1986; ISBN 9780701621629
Voices from the Honeycomb references some of Diane’s experiences as a psych inpatient, such as section 9 of the final poem ‘Snapshots of a City’ entitled Parkville, Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital, 1966. Diane has stated that her early years of writing were slow and difficult because she was in recovery from a depressive illness, but that she always felt connected to poetry and wrote poems as a schoolgirl, beginning to write with a sense of purpose and commitment in her late twenties.
“With the publication of her first volume of poetry, Voices from the Honeycomb, Diane Fahey should be immediately established among poets of solid reputation. These poems are perceptive, moving and accomplished: the book reads like a third or fourth volume.” – Chris Wallace-Crabbe, National Times

The Mystery of Rosa Morland [Verse historical crime novella]
Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2007; ISBN 9781740971713
New Year’s Eve, 1900. A train sets out from London, bound for Edinburgh. At midnight there will be an unexpected confrontation, followed by a violent disappearance. One of the twelve passengers in the sleeping car will vanish – is it murder or suicide? Diane Fahey’s glittering poem/novella weaves a fin de siecle fantasy of souls in transit.
“The verse novel articulates a very modern feminist take on sexual and actual violence within marriage and shows a number of steely women taking the action necessary to escape abuse.” – Frances Devlin-Glass
“… a brooding, postmodern Gothic poem cum novella …. more a tale about emancipation and future redemption rather than one about revenge and punishment …. a substantial achievement by a writer who demonstrates her mastery of complex themes and the styles necessary to embody them.” – Jeri Kroll