Richard James Allen – Literary Biography
Richard James Allen has combined a unique international career as a writer, performer, choreographer and filmmaker. His work has been published, broadcast, performed or screened in thirty countries.
"Allen's voice demands to be heard through its lucidity, its passion and the concepts which `spring fully-striped/from the head like tigers'," Australian Book Review.
Richard writes across a number of forms, and has been nominated for or won major prizes in poetry, filmmaking, screenwriting, playwriting, and dance. His first novel, The Kamikaze Mind, was published by Brandl & Schlesinger in May 2006. A recent feature film screenplay was shortlisted for the 2004 Rodney Seaborn Playwrights Award. A theatrical monologue, More Lies, presented by the 2000 Sydney Writers Festival, was shortlisted for the 2001 Griffin Award for New Australian Playwriting. Richard’s seventh book, Thursday’s Fictions (Five Island Press), started life as a stage production and was published in 1999 and launched at the acclaimed inaugural Australian Poetry Festival which Richard directed that year. 1999 also saw the publication of the landmark collection, co-edited with Karen Pearlman, Performing the Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Performance Texts (Currency Press/RealTime). “A first in Australian publishing history and a priceless resource,” HEAT.
A filmmaker, choreographer and dancer as well as a writer, Richard’s most recent film, Thursday’s Fictions, based on his NSW Premiere’s Literary Award nominated book of the same title, won the Gold Medal for Excellence – Director’s Choice for Artistic Excellence in a Feature Film at the Park City Film Music Festival at its premiere screening in January, 2006.
“A sweeping and sensual cinematic experience of music, dance and surreal fantasy - a shining example of putting the art back in arthouse” (Gold Medal Award Citation).
Thursday’s Fictions is slated for broadcast on ABC-TV later this year. Richard has completed a number of films for his company, The Physical TV Company, which have been shown at more than 150 festivals and screenings around the world, broadcast on television in Australia, Europe and China, and won numerous awards. He is the 2006 recipient of the prestigious Chancellor’s Award for the most outstanding PhD thesis from across all departments of the University of Technology, Sydney, for his Doctorate of Creative Arts, Out Of The Labyrinth Of The Mind: Manifesting A Spiritual Art Beyond Dualism.
Photograph of a portrait in progress of Richard James Allen by Jenni Mitchell for her Australian Poets Series.
Jenni Mitchell
19 Fordhams Road, Eltham Vic 3095
Phone: (03) 9439 3458 Fax: (03) 9439 2159 Mob: 0417 585 102
Email: jenni@jennimitchell.com.au Website: www.jennimitchell.com.au***********
Thursday's Fictions, Richard's seventh book of poetry, published by Five Islands Press, was shortlisted for the 2000 NSW Premier's Literary Award.
"In Thursday’s Fictions Allen is both playful and satirical, defiant and seductive, as he experiments with the possibilities of poetry as performance, utterance and text. The book combines highly contemporary inflexions of language with ancient and classical modes of writing, creating an extended dialogue of self and soul."
The Judges for Poetry, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
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Performing the Unnameable is the the groundbreaking first anthology of Australian Performance Texts, published by Currency Press and RealTime.
"…a first in Australian publishing history and a priceless resource." (HEAT)
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For more information contact PhysicalTV@bigpond.com
Last updated 14th February 2007
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