'Undertow' | ISBN 978 1 877010 231 | 60 pgs | Sep 2012 | $20
Susan Austin is a poet, mental health occupational therapist and eco-socialist activist. She facilitates group programs,
including a creative writing program, in a mental health clinic in Hobart. She grew up in Qld and now lives in Hobart with her husband and
two children.
Her first poetry manuscript “An Undertow of Resilience” was awarded First Commended in the Best First Book category of the IP Picks 2011
competition and was published with the title Undertow in September 2012 by Walleah Press.
In 2020 she was awarded a Career Development Grant by The Australia Council for the Arts, the arts funding and advisory body
of The Australian Government, to work on her second book, a verse novel centering on a theme of infertility, with mentor and
Editor Dr Gina Mercer. This book, Dancing with Empty Prams, was published by Walleah Press in 2023. Susan has recently
completed a third collection of poems – Incandescence (Walleah Press) – due for publication early in 2025.
Bookshop capers
From a faded couch
Melt-down
Those who come across the seas
'Undertow' (Gina Mercer, Hobart 2012)
'Dancing with Empty Prams' (Sally Lingard, Brisbane 2023)
'Dancing with Empty Prams' (Esther Ottaway, Hobart 2023)
An interview with Melanie Barnes
'Keep a flame of hope alive': Susan Austin, interview
(Or: Questions I wouldn't mind being asked) & poem
A poetry response: Susan Austin on Esther Ottaway's poem Sonnet for fifteen