Guest of the ilb 2001, 2002
John Tranter was born in Cooma, Australia, in 1943 and
grew up on his parents’ farm on the south coast of New South
Wales. In the 1960s he started writing poetry and his work was
published in different magazines before his first poetry volume
'Parallax' appeared in 1970. From the end of the 1960s to the
early 1970s he worked for various radio stations in Australia, London
and Singapore including as programme producer for the Australian radio
channel ABC. During the 1980s he taught as guest lecturer at
various Australian universities where he mainly gave classes in
creative writing. Tranter regularly writes for several literary
magazines and newspapers and has published poetry anthologies such as
'The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry' (1991).
John Tranter has published several collections of lyric poetry,
including 'Selected Poems' (1983), 'The Floor of Heaven' (1992) and
'Late Night Radio' (1998). In 1997 he founded the independent
Internet literary magazine 'jacket' which has already won several
prizes including the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica Internet Guide Award' in
2000.
Tranter initiated APRIL (Australian Poetry Resources Internet
Library) in 2004. He was awarded the Australian Kenneth Slessor Prize
for Poetry for 'Heart Print' (2001) and received the Victorian Premier
for 'Urban Myths' (2006). John Tranter lives in Sydney.
© international literature festival berlin
John Tranter online: http://johntranter.com | 
