“I write to understand what I feel and think. I am fascinated by the ways people make sense of the world they find themselves in, be it past or present. I believe that the past often helps us to see the present more clearly.”
Her second novel, Book of Colours, was published by Fourth Estate by in 2018, and released the following year in the UK. It won the 2019 ACT Book of the Year Award, was awarded a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for fiction, and was shortlisted for the Voss Award.
In response to the government’s policies on asylum-seekers, she edited a book of essays by prominent lawyers and activists, We Are Better Than This (ATF Press, 2015).As a teenager, Robyn worked in retail, selling jewellery, women’s underwear and records (when they were popular the first time round), as a petrol station driveway attendant and, during uni break, in the Kiwi factory, filling and packaging shoe polish, bleach and fragrant toilet blocks. She later worked as a bibliographic researcher at Melbourne University, and then, after finishing her PhD at Flinders University, teaching a range of English literature topics with a special interest in medieval literature.
Robyn lives in a beautiful part of the country. A lovely man, three alpacas, a sweet dog, a chook and a host of birdlife keep her company.
About Robyn
Robyn is a poet and writer who lives in the country on Ngunnawal land outside Canberra.
She has published poems, prize-winning short stories and reviews, a poetry collection, i painted unafraid and a non-fiction book based on her PhD thesis about virginity and female agency in the Middle Ages.
Her first novel, The Anchoress (2015, Fourth Estate, Australia; Faber & Faber, UK; Farrer, Straus & Giroux, US; and Gallimard, France) was received with critical acclaim: it ‘achieves what every historical novel attempts: reimagining the past while opening a new window to our present lives’ (SMH) and ‘leaves behind a deeper sense of the power of the written word’ (ABR).
It was awarded a Canberra Critics’ Circle Award for fiction and the ACT Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, was shortlisted for the ABIA Awards (Debut Fiction), the Adelaide Festival Literary Awards, and longlisted for the ABIA Awards (Literary Fiction and New Author).
