John Alan Scott (who has published under the names John A. Scott and John Scott) (born 23 April 1948) is an English- Australian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

Biography

Scott was born in

Littlehampton Littlehampton is a town, seaside resort, and pleasure harbour, and the most populous civil parish in the Arun District of West Sussex, England. It lies on the English Channel on the eastern bank of the mouth of the River Arun. It is south sout ...

John A Scott Contents page
at Australian Literature Resources in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English C ...

, England, migrating to Australia during his childhood and residing mainly in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metrop ...

since 1959. He attended

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...

, where he was a contemporary of fellow poets Alan Wearne and

Laurie Duggan Laurence James Duggan (born 1949), known as Laurie Duggan, is an Australian poet, editor, and translator. Life Laurie Duggan was born in Melbourne and attended Monash University, where his friends included the poets Alan Wearne and John A. S ...

. A former freelance scriptwriter for radio and television, working on such shows as ''

The Aunty Jack Show ''The Aunty Jack Show'' was a Logie Award-winning Australian television comedy series that ran from 1972 to 1973. Produced by and broadcast on ABC-TV, the series attained an instant cult status that persists to the present day. The lead char ...

'' (1974), ''It's Magic'' (1974) and '' The Garry McDonald Show'' (1977). He first became known in the literary world as a poet. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, his work developed in an 'experimental' direction unusual in Australian poetry, owing partly to his interest in translation. In 1985 he was one of Four Australian Poets group that toured the US and Canada reading poetry. He also edited and translated '' Emmanuel Hocquard : Elegies and Other Works (''1989). Since the 1990s he has concentrated on producing novels. This change was occasioned in part by an

Australia Council The Australia Council for the Arts, commonly known as the Australia Council, is the country's official arts council, serving as an arts funding and advisory body for the Government of Australia. The council was announced in 1967 as the Austra ...

studio fellowship in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

which he shared with the Australian novelist Mark Henshaw. His work has won him the Victorian Premier's Award twice, in 1986 and again in 1994. The novel, ''

What I Have Written ''What I Have Written'' is a 1996 Australian drama film directed by John Hughes and starring Martin Jacobs.

'', has been filmed from his own screenplay and he has been translated into French, German and

Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes, an ethno-linguistic group mainly living in Slovenia * Sl ...

. He has taught in the Faculty of Creative Arts at

Wollongong University The University of Wollongong (abbreviated as UOW) is an Australian public research university located in the coastal city of Wollongong, New South Wales, approximately 80 kilometres south of Sydney. As of 2017, the university had an enrolment of ...

but now writes full-time.

Awards

* 1984: Newcastle Poetry Prize for ''St. Clair'' * 1986:

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry The Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, formerly known as the C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, is a prize category in the annual Victorian Premier's Literary Award. As of 2011 it has an enumeration of 25,000. The winner of this category prize vies ...

for ''St. Clair'' * 1994:

Victorian Premier's Literary Award The Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were created by the Victorian Government with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary creative writing and Australia's publishing industry. As of 2013, it is reportedly Australia's richest literary ...

for ''What I Have Written'' * 2013:

Peter Porter Poetry Prize The Peter Porter Poetry Prize is an ongoing international literary award run by the Australian Book Review for outstanding poetry. Established by the ''ABR'' in 2005, the Prize is named after the late Australian poet Peter Porter. The Porter Priz ...

for "Four Sonnets"

Bibliography

Poetry *''The Barbarous Sideshow'' (1975) *''From the Flooded City'' (1981) *''Smoking'' (1983) *''The Quarrel with Ourselves & Confession'' (Rigmarole, 1984) *''St. Clair: Three Narratives'' (UQP, 1986) *''Singles: Shorter Poems, 1982-1986'' (1989) *''Translation'' (Picador, 1990) *''Selected Poems'' (UQP, 1995) *''Shorter Lives'' (Puncher & Wattman, 2020) Novels *''Blair'' (McPhee Gribble, 1988) *''What I Have Written'' (Penguin, 1994) *'' Before I Wake'' (Penguin, 1996) *'' The Architect'' (Penguin, 2001) *''Warra Warra'' (Text, 2003) *''N'' (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2014)

External links

Author page
- Australian Literary Resources
Elegy VI
by Emmanuel Hocquard, Translation by John A. Scott from French
Elegy VII
by Emmanuel Hocquard, Translation
Interview with John ScottBestsellerdoom
Review of ''Warra Warra'' by Don Anderson

References

1948 births Australian male novelists Australian poets 20th-century English novelists 21st-century English novelists English male poets Living people People from Littlehampton English male novelists 20th-century English male writers 21st-century English male writers Academic staff of the University of Wollongong Monash University alumni {{Australia-poet-stub