Heather Taylor-Johnson is an American-born multi-form writer living and working on Kaurna land near Port Adelaide. She has published the verse novel Rhymes with Hyenas and five poetry collections, the most recent being Alternative Hollywood Ending. An anthology she edited, Shaping the Fractured Self: Poetry of Chronic Illness and Pain, was the winner of the Mascara Avant Garde Award and is read in disability circles around the world. Her poetry and lyric essays have been published across Australia, including in Westerly, Overland, Griffith Review and Meanjin.
Her second novel, Jean Harley was Here, was shortlisted for the Readings Prize for New Fiction and optioned for a 7-part TV series. Her third novel, Little Bit, was released in 2024. Her essays have won the Island’s Nonfiction Prize and have been shortlisted for ABR’s Calibre Prize. Other shortlistings include the Red Room Poetry Fellowship and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. She’s an arts critic and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the J.M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide, the same university where she received her PhD in Creative Writing in 2008.