M.T.C. Cronin's work first appeared in print in early 1993 and since then nineteen books (poetry, prose poems and essays) have appeared, including a collection jointly written with the Australian poet, Peter Boyle (one of these collaborative works is available through Shearsman). Published internationally, she has won many major Australian literary awards, including the prestigious Gwen Harwood Memorial Poetry Prize, and two major prizes for her first Shearsman volume, <More or Less Than> 1-100. Her work has been widely anthologised and translated (Chinese, French, Italian, Serbo-Croat, Macedonian, Russian, Swedish, Dutch, Catalan, Spanish and German), and her 2001 collection, Talking to Neruda's Questions
has appeared in Spanish and Italian translations. The English original of this volume is also available from Shearsman as a free e-book on this site. Her 2001 book, Bestseller
was published in 2017 in a French translation by Anne Ortiz Talvaz (Editions de l'Amandier, Paris).
Born in 1963 in Merriwa in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Australia, Cronin grew up in Caloundra, Queensland and following school attended first the University of Queensland and then later the University of New South Wales, the University of Technology and the University of Sydney, studying political science, law, literature and creative writing. After being employed for most of the nineties in law, she has in recent years taught literature and creative writing at primary and secondary schools and also at various universities and writers’ centres. Her poetry has been set in texts in numerous schools and at tertiary level in both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Cronin currently lives, with her partner and three daughters, on a biodynamic farm in Conondale in the Sunshine Coast hinterland with her partner, Richard Mohan, and three daughters, Maya, Vivienne and Agnès. The farm supplies exotic heirloom vegetables to restaurants around Australia and is a labour of love! Her next collection, entitled The Law of Poetry
(written over the last fifteen years), is forthcoming with Puncher & Wattmann in early 2015.
Find
Talking to Neruda's Questions
here.