GINA MERCER [BA(Hons), PhD, Grad Cert Adult Ed] migrated south, from Townsville to Hobart, in late 2003, to write"full-time" in the congenial environment of Tasmania.

Prior to her migration she was Senior Lecturer in creative writing, Australian literature and literary theory at the School of Humanities at James Cook University, Townsville (1991-2003). She was the General Editor for the literary journal Linq 1994 - 2002. She has taught creative writing in the community for many years.

She has enjoyed frequent publication of her creative and academic work, both in journals and books, throughout her career. Her first book was a critical analysis of N.Z writer, Janet Frame: Subversive Fictions (UQP, 1994). Her first collection of poems, The Ocean in the Kitchen, was published by Five Islands Press in 1999. Her first novel, Parachute Silk, was published by Spinifex Press in 2001. She co-edited a collection of essays, Postgraduate Research Supervision: Transforming (R)Elations with publisher Peter Lang (NY, 2001). In 1997 she was the winner of the Northern Territory's Red Earth Poetry (Open) Competition. In 1998 she was the recipient of the Qld Arts Council/Everald Compton New Regional Writer’s Fellowship.