Philip Max Neilsen is an 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 ...

, fiction writer and editor. He teaches poetry at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

and was previously professor of

creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

at the

Queensland University of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

Biography

Neilsen was born in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. His grandparents and great grandparents were emigrants from

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. He attended

Brisbane Grammar School , motto_translation = Nothing Without Labour , established = 1868 , type = Independent, day & boarding , gender = Boys , denomination = Non-denominational , slogan = , key_people = , ci ...

and the

where he gained honours, masters and doctoral degrees in English and taught for nine years. He founded the creative writing program at the

in 1997, the first in Queensland. He has been a member of the Literature Board of the

Australia Council for the Arts 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 ...

. Previously, he has been Chair of the Queensland Writers Centre and Chair of PEN Australia North. He established th
Imago: New Writing Literary Magazine
with poe
Helen Horton
Neilsen is married to lawyer and write
Mhairead MacLeod
and was previously married to public servant Samantha Organ-Moore (no
Samantha Palmer
.

Writing and editing

Neilsen’s work ranges from satire and fabulism to lyricism and social realism, and explores social, environmental and personal subjects. Literary influences he has mentioned include

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in ...

Billy Collins William James Collins (born March 22, 1941) is an American poet, appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. He is a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York (retired, 2016). Collins ...

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ...

Simon Armitage Simon Robert Armitage (born 26 May 1963) is an English poet, playwright, musician and novelist. He was appointed Poet Laureate on 10 May 2019. He is professor of poetry at the University of Leeds. He has published over 20 collections of poetr ...

Sharon Olds Sharon Olds (born November 12, 1942) is an American poet. Olds won the first San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1980, the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award, and the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

Carolyn Forché Carolyn Forché (born April 28, 1950) is an American poet, editor, professor, translator, and human rights advocate. She has received many awards for her literary work. Biography Forché was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Michael Joseph and Louis ...

and

Judith Wright Judith Arundell Wright (31 May 191525 June 2000) was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. Biography Judith Wright was born in Armidale, New Sou ...

. His poetry earned a Young Writer’s Fellowship from the Australia Council in 1976. '' Edward Britton '', a young adult novel co-authored with Gary Crew was a CBC Australian Notable Book in 2001. His work has been translated into Chinese, German, Korean and Serbian. His poetry was included in the 2008 Norton anthology ''The Making of a Sonnet'' (Eds.

Edward Hirsch Edward M. Hirsch (born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including ''The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems'' (2010), which brings toget ...

Eavan Boland Eavan Aisling Boland (24 September 1944 – 27 April 2020) was an Irish poet, author, and professor. She was a professor at Stanford University, where she had taught from 1996. Her work deals with the Irish national identity, and the role of w ...

), ''The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry'' (Ed. John Kinsella, 2009), ''Australian Poetry Since 1788'' (Eds. Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, 2011), ''The Turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry'' (University of Louisiana, 2014) and ''The Best Australian Poems 2017'' (Ed.

Sarah Holland-Batt Sarah Holland-Batt is a contemporary Australian poet, critic, and academic. Early life and education Born in Southport, Queensland, Sarah Holland-Batt grew up in Australia and Denver, Colorado. She was educated at the University of Queensland ...

) (Black Inc.) He wrote the first monograph of literary criticism on

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf AO (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University of Quee ...

’s work, ''Imagined Lives'' (UQP, 1990 & 1996) and edited the first collections of Australian satirical poetry ''The Penguin Book of Australian Satirical Verse'' (1986) and ''The Sting in the Wattle'' (UQP, 1993). Neilsen’s poetry has been acclaimed by Les Murray, John Kinsella,

Bronwyn Lea Bronwyn Lea is a contemporary Australian poet, academic and editor. Biography Born in Tasmania, Lea grew up in Queensland and Papua New Guinea, moving to San Diego to study at California State University. She completed a PhD titled "The way ...

Martin Duwell Martin Duwell (born 1948, in England) is an Australian poetry editor, reviewer and publisher. Duwell is recognized as a leading poetry reviewer in Australia, as well as for his "significant contribution to the recognition and development of new ...

and

Bruce Dawe Donald Bruce Dawe (15 February 1930 – 1 April 2020) was an Australian poet and academic. Some critics consider him one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.

, among others. His work has been shortlisted for an Aurealis Award, Fair Australia Prize, Woorilla Poetry Prize and the ASAL Gold Medal. He has won prizes in the Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Poetry Award and the MPU International Poetry Competition. His book "Wildlife of Berlin" was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, 2019. His areas of research include creative writing therapy in the promotion of mental health, eco-criticism, and environmental poetry. He currently teaches poetry writing at the University of Queensland.

Poetry collections

''Faces of a Sitting Man'' (Makar Press, 1975).
''The Art of Lying'' (Makar Press, 1979)
''Australian Poets on Tape: Philip Roberts & Philip Neilsen'' (UQP, 1980)
''Life Movies'' (QCP, 1981)
''We’ll All Go Together'' (with Barry O’Donohue)(QCP, 1983)
''Without an Alibi'' (Salt: Cambridge, 2008)
''Wildlife of Berlin'' (University of Western Australia Publishing, 2018)

Children’s and young adult books

''Emma and the Megahero'' (Reed Books, 1995)
''The Lie'' (Lothian, 1997)
''The Wombat King, '' (Lothian, 1997)
''Edward Britton'' (with Gary Crew) (Lothian, 2000)
''Splot the Viking'' (Penguin, 2008)

Scholarly Books

''Imagined Lives: A Study of David Malouf'' (University of Queensland Press, 1990 & revised 1996)
''The Cambridge Companion to Creative Writing'' Co-edited with David Morley (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
''Creative Arts in Counseling and Mental Health'' Co-edited with Robert King and Felicity Baker (SAGE, 2015)

Edited Anthologies

''The Penguin Book of Australian Satirical Verse'' Edited by Philip Neilsen (Penguin Books, 1986)
''The Sting in the Wattle'' Edited by Philip Neilsen (University of Queensland Press, 1993)
''50 Years of Queensland Poetry'' Co-edited with Helen Horton (Central Queensland University Press, 1998)
''Difficult Love: Short Stories'' Co-edited with Helen Horton (Central Queensland University Press, 2000)

Short stories

His short stories have appeared in ''

The State of the Art ''The State of the Art'' is a short story collection by Scottish writer Iain M. Banks, first published in 1991. The collection includes some stories originally published under his other byline "Iain Banks", as well as the title novella and othe ...

'' (ed. Frank Moorhouse), ''Paradise to Paranoia'' (eds.

Nigel Krauth Nigel Krauth (born 1949) is an Australian novelist and academic. he is a professor at Griffith University. He has published several novels and co-authored a number of young adult works. Early life and education Krauth was born in Cremorne, New ...

and Robyn Sheehan), ''

Latitudes In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north pole ...

'' (ed. Susan Johnson), ''The Dark House'' (ed. Gary Crew) and journals such as ''Southerly'', '' Overland'' and ''Linq''. The autobiographical essay ‘''Humility''’ appeared in ''Eleven Saving Virtues'' (ed. Ross Fitzgerald). A digital story ‘''The Storyteller’'' is available at
http://www.kgurbanvillage.com.au/sharing/digital/philip.shtm

References

Review of ''Without an Alibi'' in ''Australian Book Review'' June, 2008
Review of ''Wildlife of Berlin'' in ''Australian Poetry Review'' by Martin Duwell, May, 2018
Review of ''Wildlife of Berlin'' in the ''Australian'' by Geoff Page, July, 2019
Review of ''Wildlife of Berlin'' in ''Westerly'' by Lucy Walding, 2019

External links

QUT profile at http://www.creativeindustries.qut.edu.au/about_us/staff-profile/profile.jsp Web site at http://philipneilsen.org/ Full list of works at https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/search/page?query=Philip+Neilsen&token=KdKmAMP&facetSampleSize=0&facetValuesSize=0&blendMax=y&count=50 {{DEFAULTSORT:Neilsen, Philip Australian children's writers Australian poets Australian people of English descent Australian people of Norwegian descent Australian people of German descent Australian people of Scottish descent Living people Academic staff of Queensland University of Technology Year of birth missing (living people)