Kate Llewellyn

Eldest of four children of Ron and Ivy Brinkworth (née Shemmald), Llewellyn was born Kathleen Jill Brinkworth in 1936 in Tumby Bay on Eyre Peninsula, South Australia. Llewellyn trained at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, graduating as a registered nurse in 1958. From 1965-72 she owned and directed the Llewellyn Galleries, Dulwich, Adelaide and in 1971-72 the Bonython Galleries, North Adelaide. She graduated from the University of Adelaide with a BA in history and classics in 1978. Llewellyn worked on the Unley Planning Study 1978 and in 1979 worked in the Women’s Advisory Unit of the SA Premier’s Department.

In 1960 she married Richard Llewellyn, with whom she had two children but the couple divorced in 1972.

Llewellyn began writing as an undergraduate. In addition to her poetry, she has written book reviews, criticisms and essays for Australian poetry and prose anthologies, magazines and newspapers and also on travel, gardening, food and people.

Llewellyn is a regular speaker at Writers’ Festivals, including the 2015 Adelaide Writers’ Week. She has also taught creative writing courses and been writer-in-residence at a number of colleges, universities and writers’ centres across Australia.

Australian Writers, 1975-2000 (one volume of the Dictionary of Literary Biography published by Thomson Gale, 2002-6) edited by Selina Samuels includes a biography of Llewellyn by Dorothy Jones.

In 2005 Llewellyn received a Literature Board Fellowship (Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships) valued at $80,000 to write an autobiography and book of poems.

• 2006 Australian Book of the Year (Galley Club of Sydney Awards for Excellence in Publishing and Print) for Playing with Water (2005) diary
• 1982 Joint Winner, Anne Elder Award (Fellowship of Australian Writers Victoria Inc. National Literary Awards) for Trader Kate and the Elephants (Friendly Street Poets)
• 1975 Bundey Prize for English Verse for Teeth and Other Verses (1975) Selected work poetry

Poetry

• Teeth [and other verses] (University of Adelaide, 1975)
• Trader Kate and the Elephants (Friendly Street Poets, 1982)
• Luxury (Women’s Redress Press, 1985)
• Honey: Poems or I am my own companion (Hudson Publishing, 1988)
• Figs: Poems (Hudson Publishing, 1990)
• Selected Poems (Hudson Publishing, 1992)
• Crosshatched (Angus & Robertson, 1994)
• Sofala: And Other Poems (Hudson Publishing, 1999)
• Kate Llewellyn (University of Wollongong Press, 2010)

Non-Fiction

• The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, with Susan Hampton co-editor (Penguin, 1986)
• The Waterlily: A Blue Mountains Journal (Hudson Publishing, 1987)
• Dear You (Hudson Publishing, 1988)
• The Mountain (Hudson Publishing, 1989)
• Angels and Dark Madonnas (Hudson Publishing, 1991)
• Lilies, Feathers & Frangipani (Angus & Robertson, 1993) – travelogue / braille
• The Floral Mother and Other Essays (Angus & Robertson, 1995)
• Gorillas, Tea and Coffee: An African Sketchbook (Hudson Publishing, 1996)
• Burning: A Journal (Hudson Publishing, 1997)
• Playing with Water (HarperCollins, 2005)
• The Dressmaker’s Daughter (Fourth Estate, 2008)
• A Fig at the Gate: The Joys of Friendship, Gardening and the Gaining of Wisdom (Allen & Unwin, 2014)
• First Things First: Selected Letters of Kate Llewellyn 1977-2004, edited by Ruth Bacchus & Barbara Hill (Wakefield Press, 2015)

In 1982 three of Llewellyn’s short stories - The Balts, Gone and I Am My Own Companion – were published in Frictions, an Anthology of Fiction by Women, edited by Anna Gibbs and Alison Tilson (Sybylla Cooperative Press & Publications, 1982).

Her short story for Room to Move: The Redress Press Book of Australian Women’s Short Stories edited by Suzanne Falkiner (Allen & Unwin, 1985) was one of 32 chosen from over 700 submissions.

She is represented in The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse Chosen by Les A Murray (Oxford University Press, 1986).

One of her poems, To a Married Man, appears in 60 Classic Australian Poems, with commentaries by Geoff Page (University of New South Wales Press, 2009). It originally appeared in her award-winning book, Trader Kate and the Elephants.

Her poem, Finished, from Selected Poems, was selected by John Leonard for inclusion in Australian Verse: An Oxford Anthology (Melbourne Oxford University Press, 1998).

Places in the heart: thirty prominent Australians reveal their special corners of the world, edited and compiled by Susan Kurosawa (Sceptre, 1997) includes her Endless Horizons.