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Moya Costello

Writer
 

Books 

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Kites in Jakarta 
(complimentary download)
Small Ecstasies
(complimentary download)
 
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pressed specimens:
Prose Poems from the Medicinal Plant Herbarium,
Southern Cross University 
(2022 1st edition, Beir Bua Press)
Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIeKwlZkxLk



pressed specimens:
Prose Poems from the Medicinal Plant Herbarium,

Southern Cross University
(2023 2nd edition,
Short Odds Publications) 
Works
Bio

Moya Costello has five books – two of short creative prose (Kites in Jakarta, Sea Cruise Books and Small Ecstasies, UQP), two short novels (The Office as a Boat, Brandl & Schlesinger and Harriet Chandler, Short Odds Publications), one collection of prose poems (pressed specimens, 1st edition Beir Bua Press; 2nd edition Short Odds Publications) – and many pieces individually published in scholarly and literary journals, and anthologies. She has been awarded writing grants and fellowships by government departments and literary organisations. She has been a guest at many writers’ festivals, read her work at various venues, been as writer-in-residence at Monash University, and judged many literary competitions. She is an adjunct lecturer with the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts, Southern Cross University.  See also an academic publication site; a general wine quaffing blog, and a local wine drinking blog

Bio

In the Media

Don Anderson, The National Times on Kites in Jakarta: 'In the dominant drab landscape of Australian realistic writing, these volumes come like a fresh breath of wind. A southerly buster.'

John Hanrahan, The Age

on Small Ecstasies: 'There is wit, irony and comedy in the writing, but also an assured seriousness and high intelligence.'

Katherine England,

The Advertiser

on The Office as a Boat: 'The writing is beautifully clear and visually precise.'

 

On Twitter, from Akin

Akinwumi: 'Currently reading this wondrous novella [The Office as a Boat] by Australian avant-garde writer @moya_costello. It's so striking at the sentence level and recalls Joy Williams and Kathryn Davis in the way it treads the line between realism and the surreal.'

Nicholas Jose, Sydney Review of Books and The Australian Face: Essays from the Sydney Review of Books on Harriet Chandler: 'This bold, uncompromising author …. this brilliant, beautiful book.'

In Sydney Review of Books by Catriona Menzies-Pike: 'an incarnation of avant-garde and experimental writing'.

 

Was mentioned in Shanghai Daily.

 

In Rochford Street Review by Anna Couani 

In Text by Julienne van Loo

 

Andrew Paul Wood, NZ Listener on 'Of Ants and Black Cockatoos' in Scorchers: 'Costello's prose is  richly poetic, unforced.'

 

On Twitter, academics, editors and writers  of my Overland review of Bail's He.: Emmett Stinson 'fantastic and fascinating piece'; Susan Lever, 'This is terrific. All your deep knowledge of Bail behind it.'; Jonathon Dunk: 'This essay is a striking study in/performance of the border between entanglement, intimacy and complicity in Australian literary history'. 

First review of pressed specimens 2022, in Buzz by Mab Jones. 

Mark Roberts in Rochford Street Review on pressed specimens. 

Cassandra Atherton, Professor of Writing and Literature, said of pressed specimens in a Facebook/Meta discussion: 

In The Press
News and Events

Events & News 2023-2024

EVENTS

2023

  • Read at Deloraine, British Hotel, at a regular monthly reading in Feb and March. 

  • Also read at Devonport Playhouse in an open mic

  • A guest reader at Seasonal Poets, a curated reading, in Hobart Feb. 

  • Read open mic in poetry about place at Rant Arts, Devonport, Tasmania. 

  • Read at Liquid  Amber Press online open mic.

  • In online reading for Beir Bua poets July 2023. A two-hour reading. I appear at 42.50- 46.39. 

  • Guest reader at Deloraine, Tasmania, heats for national poetry slam. 

2024​

MoyaSCUPSlaunch.JPG

NEWS

2023

  • Review of Imants Tillers' Credo in autumn no 335 2023  Art Monthly Australasia.

  • pressed specimens was Highly Commended in the Anne Elder Poetry Award.

  • 'Hedone' published in Spineless Wonders anthology Play, as a finalist in the joanne burns Microlit Award 2023

  • Nominated by Beir Bua Press for a Pushcart Prize. 

  • Finalist in the 2024 joanne burns Microlit Award from Spineless Wonders. Work to appear in the anthology Remnant in 2024. 

  • 'little jokes that nobody but me will understand''. In The Saltbush Review issue 4 2023. Riffing on Murray Bail's claim about inserting jokes into his writing.

2024

Contact

For inquiries, please contact Moya Costello

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