Editorial Board
SWAMP has a diverse and talented group of editors. With the exception of our Editorial Advisor, Dr Keri Glastonbury, and our current Guest Editor (Prose), the editorial board is comprised completely of postgraduate Creative Writing students. Except where noted, all members of the editorial team are from the University of Newcastle, Australia. This journal is by postgraduates, for postgraduates. Feel free to read about editors below to find out more about each of them.
Editor-In-Chief: Malcolm St Hill (Issues 12- )
Malcolm was the Editor (Poetry) for Issues 10 and 11, and is now the Editor-In-Chief from Issue 12 onward.
Malcolm St Hill is a poet and prose writer who seeks, through his PhD, to divine his grandfather, one of the deified Australian Light-Horseman. What began as a rendition through verse and morphed into creative nonfiction, still draws heavily on poetry as a means of exploring the inexplicable, a conveyor of emotional truth, and in charting responses to trauma. He is also interested in how to convey character through creative nonfiction, giving voice to those previously mute or unheard. Malcolm’s poetry has been published in the University of Newcastle’s Creative Writing Anthology, Archipelago, and by Catchfire Press in Through the Valley.
Editor (Prose): Samantha Dagg (Issues 12- )
After being in the role of Editor (Prose) for Issues 6 and 7, Samantha stepped into the role of Editor-In-Chief for Issues 8 – 11. She is returns to Editor (Prose) from Issue 12 onward.
Sam is currently involved in a Masters of Creative writing focusing on short fiction. She uses this as an excuse to be disorganised, underemployed and to explain all past and future personal indiscretions. She has been published, mostly in things you’ve never heard of, but sometimes in things you may have.
Editor (Prose): Nell Robertson (Issues 8- )
Nell joined the SWAMP team for Issue 8 and will hopefully be part of the team for some time.
Nell is currently studying a Masters of Creative Writing, exploring semi-autobiographical fiction with a magic realist leaning. In her undergraduate degree she studied logic in philosophy and her enjoyment of mathematics, colour and the ocean tends to come out in her writing. For Honours Nell wrote a short story cycle which she may send off to a publisher one of these years and make the leap from writer to author.
Editor (Poetry): Sarah Jane Barnett (Massey University, New Zealand) (Issues 9- )
Sarah was published with SWAMP in Issue 7, and joined the SWAMP editorial team as a Guest Editor for Issue 9. Sarah joined the editorial team as a permanent member Issue 10 and plans to work with the SWAMP team from the University of Newcastle for some time.
Sarah is a writer and book reviewer who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. Her work has appeared in a range of literary journals such as Landfall and Sport, and on the e-zines Cordite, Snorkel and Turbine. Her poems have also been selected for Best New Zealand Poems 2007 and 2010. Sarah is currently completing a creative writing PhD in the field of ecopoetics.
Guest Editor (Prose): Sarah Dobbs (University of Lancaster, UK) (Issues 12)
Sarah has a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Lancaster. Her debut novel, Killing Daniel, was published by Unthank Books in 2012. She is currently at work on her third. You can follow her on Twitter @sarahjanedobbs
Editorial Advisor: Dr Keri Glastonbury (Issues 1- )
Keri Glastonbury is a poet and is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. She has helped SWAMP since its creation and continues to help guide the publication. Her DCA thesis ‘Shut up, Nobody Wants to Hear Your Poems’ staged a friendly title bout between two grunge auteurs of her generation, painter Adam Cullen and poet Ted Nielson. In 2012, her collection of poetry grit salute was published by papertiger media inc.
Past Editorial Board Members
Founding Editor
Patrick Bryson (Issues 1-3)
In 2009 Patrick was awarded his PhD in creative writing from the University of Newcastle, where he also taught CW for three years. His thesis, Chasing the Unwritable Book, explores how identity is shaped by mental illness and the fictional possibilities it presents to the author – with a particular focus on autobiographical fiction. He is a published poet, short story writer and essayist (in publications like Studio, Tehelka and The Times Of India), and his first book of verse, Intended Shadows, was published in 2003. More recently, his prize-winning essay ‘The Casino Bipolar’ was included in Mastering Bipolar Disorder (Allen & Unwin, 2008) and his chapter on Peter Kocan ‘The Urge to Write and the Urge to Kill’ featured in Configuring Madness, an anthology released by Rodopi Press, Oxford, in 2009. His debut novel is called Slouching Towards Petersham.
Co-Founder
Peter Bower (Editor-In-Chief Issues 4-6; Co-Editor Issues 1-3; Editor (poetry) Issue 8)
Peter is the co-founder of SWAMP with previous editor, Patrick Bryson, and was Co-Editor of Issues 1-3. He was Editor-In-Chief for issues 4-6 and returned to assist with Editor (Poetry) duties for Issue 8. He continues to maintain the website and assist in various editorial duties.
He is a published poet, writer and photographer. His postgraduate studies take a look at the shifting cultures in pubs in the Newcastle and Hunter Valley region; his novel examines social interactions and dysfunctionality within these cultural hubs, society’s dependence on them during times of crisis, and portrayals of self and masculinity within these predominantly male domains. Some of his work can be found on his website and he can be found on Twitter.
Ivy Ireland (Editor (poetry) Issues 1-5)
Ivy is a PhD student at the University of Newcastle and was one of the Poets Union Australian Young Poets Fellows in 2007, culminating in the launch of her first book incidental complications. Ivy has a penchant for mysticism, cosmology and cabaret performance and has performed at various events including “This Is Not Art”, “The Big Day Out”, “Melbourne Fringe Festival” and “The Peats Ridge Festival”. Currently, Ivy is a co-coordinator of the performance troupe, “The Lovelorn Living Party”.
Scott Brewer (Editor-In-Chief Issue 7; Editor (Prose) Issues 4-6)
Scott was Editor-In-Chief for Issue 7 and the Editor (Prose) from Issues 4-6.
Scott was misplaced. He is a PhD student in literature at the University of Newcastle. He is not a creative writer, but he quite likes them – if only in the abstract. He was an editor of SWAMP by virtue of nodding sympathetically one too many times at Peter and Patrick. Apparently, he provided an analytical edge previously lacking. He is published in JASAL.
Cassandra O’Loughlin (Editor (Poetry) Issues 5-7; Co-Editor (Poetry) Issue 4)
After working with Ivy Ireland as Co-Editor (Poetry) for Issue 4, Cassandra has taken on the role of lead Editor (poetry) from Issue 5 through 7.
Cassandra is now working on her PhD at the University of Newcastle. Her poems have appeared in the Newcastle University Creative Writing anthologies, Southerly, Overland, Mascara Literary Review, Poetrix, Eureka Street and Catchfire Press publications. She won the Catchfire Press regional poetry prize in 2004 and awarded a highly commended in the 2012 Eric Rolls Prize for a personal essay.
Jenna Gill (Co-Editor (Poetry) Issues 1-2)
Lauchlan Ceeney (Co-Editor (Prose) Issue 10)
