Kinsella, John

'Ern is of the park, and occasionally further afield. He channels, divines, and is pretty much an open book. He is losing his ambitions.'

(Author's biography for pseudonym, Cordite no.23, 2005.)

John Kinsella is the founding editor of the international poetry magazine Salt. He is co-editor of Stand (UK) and international editor of The Kenyon Review (USA). He is also a consultant editor to Westerly (CSAL, University of Western Australia) and the Cambridge correspondent for Overland (Melbourne, Australia).

Kinsella has been a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge since 1998. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. In 2001, he was appointed Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College (Ohio, USA) for the spring semester. In 2005 Kinsella proposed a School of Environmental Poetics and Creativity.

Kinsella has been the recipient of numerous awards and has also received grants and fellowships from the Literature Fund of the Australia Council and a grant from the Western Australian Department of the Arts. His work has been translated into a number of languages.

John Kinsella grew up in the city but also spent much of his youth, including three years of schooling, in country towns and on farms around Mullewa, Geraldton and in the south-west of Western Australia. Following studies at the University of Western Australia, he travelled internationally for a number of years. Kinsella is a vegan, a pacifist, an anti-nationalist and a supporter of animal rights. As a cultural commentator, he has made statements in support of Indigenous rights, including land rights, and gender respect.