Catherine Cole was born in Sydney, Australia and lives in Australia, the UK and France. She is a fiction and non-fiction writer and a Professor in Creative Writing, Literary and Cultural Studies. Having worked as a Deputy Dean, Associate Dean, Research and Professor for 20 years, she is now an Honorary Professor at 3 universities in the UK and Australia.
Catherine’s fictional works include the crime novels Dry Dock and Skin Deep, and the fictional memoir about the French in colonial Hanoi, Vietnam, The Grave at Thu Le. She has also published short stories and poetry.
Her non-fiction includes the memoir, The Poet Who Forgot, a reflection on her youthful friendship with the Australian poet, AD Hope.
Catherine's research includes studies on Vietnam before and after the French colonial period and the American/Vietnam war.
She has written on crime fiction and its popularity in her monograph, Private Dicks and Feisty Chicks: An Interrogation of Crime Fiction. She has edited the anthologies, Fashion in Fiction: Clothing in Text, Film and Television and The Perfume River: Writing from Vietnam.
Her current writing explores migration, home and refuge. The short story collection, Seabirds Crying in the Harbour Dark, examined these issues and stories from the collection are taught in schools and universities in the UK, USA, Australia and China. The collection was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2018. The memoir, Slipstream: On Memory and Migration examines the ways in which migration shapes personal and national narratives. A French House: On a Longing for place, also reflects upon the ways in which people seek new countries, in this case France and the French countryside.
Catherine’s novel, Sleep, explores the ways in which memory and trauma influence the way we see the world and what we need to do to make art of our lives.
Catherine is currently Honorary Professor of Creative Writing at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, Merseyside, UK, where she formerly coordinated the MA Writing and Research degrees in the discipline of creative writing. She remains a research mentor and a board member of the LJMU English Research Institute.
Catherine's academic career also includes professorial appointments at RMIT University, Melbourne, and University of Wollongong, where she was Professor of Creative Writing, and formerly Deputy Dean of Creative Arts. In Australia she is now an Honorary Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Wollongong.
She has taught at University of New South Wales and The University of Technology, Sydney. She has supervised the PhDs of 38 writers in Australia and the UK including some of the countries’ leading writers. Her own degrees include a Doctorate, an MA, Graduate Diploma of Adult Education, BA and Associate Diploma of Writing and Editing.
Catherine remains involved in a range of academic and community projects in the UK and Australia. In Liverpool she coordinates a number of interdisciplinary research projects.
She has been a Governor on the LJMU Board of Governors, a member of a number of university committees and also a member of the Liverpool City Council (UK) Cultural committee.
She is a former member of the Australian Research Council's Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) evaluation committee in Humanities and the Creative Arts. She continues to provide expert advice to a range of universities on their research and creative practice activities.
She is a regular book reviewer, participant in Australian and international writers' festivals and a judge of major national and international book awards. Catherine has also worked in the fields of human rights, equity and diversity and industrial relations.