CV

 

Short Biography

Colleen Z Burke, poet, and author grew up in a working-class family with an Irish background in Bondi, Sydney, and now lives in the inner city. She has been a shorthand typist, research assistant, community worker and Writer-in-the-Community and Workplace. Leaving school at 15, she later matriculated, completing a BA. She also facilitated poetry and creative writing workshops in adult and community education.

 Cloud Hands is Colleen’s 13^th poetry book, and she has also written a biography of Australian poet, Marie E.J. Pitt, Doherty’s Corner, and is co-editor with Vincent Woods of The Turning Wave – Poems and Songs of Irish Australia. She has published two memoirs, The Waves Turn and The Human Heart is a Bold Traveller.

Her poetry collection the edge of it was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize, part of the NSW Literary Awards. Colleen was awarded the NSW Writers’ Fellowship in 2000 to work on her memoirs and poetry.