Ingrid Andersen (born 1965) is a South African poet.

Biography

Andersen lived in Johannesburg most of her life, worked in Grahamstown in the

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

for five years and relocated to the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands in 2007. She worked as a theatre publicist in the 1980s, the days of political protest theatre, at the Market Theatre and PACT, amongst others. As South Africa began to rebuild after the first democratic elections, she became active in community development, as CEO of the Rosebank Homeless Association and then as Community Engagement Manager at Rhodes University. She works at the University of KwaZulu Natal in human rights advocacy, healing and reconciliation, with a particular focus on the

Alternatives to Violence Project The Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) is a volunteer-run conflict transformation program. Teams of trained AVP facilitators conduct experiential workshops to develop participants' abilities to resolve conflicts without resorting to Psychologi ...

. Her debut poetry collection, ''Excision'', was launched at the National Arts Festival in 2005. It was reviewed in ''Wordstock'', the Arts Festival WordFest newspaper, as "well-crafted, controlled and concise...a strong debut collection containing sensitive and poignant sketches...Andersen wields her pen with surgical precision" (Warren 2005). Over the past fifteen years, her poems have appeared in South African

literary journal A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters ...

s, including ''Imprint, Green Dragon, Aerial, Slugnews, Carapace'' and ''New Coin''. She presented her work at WordFest in 2004 and 2005, as well as at the Hilton Arts Festival in 2009. She remembers with affection the mentoring of Lionel Abrahams at his workshops in the early 1990s. ''Piecework'', her second collection of poetry, to be published by Modjaji Books, is due out in 2010. Andersen is the editor of ''Incwadi'', a South African online journal of poetry and photography.

References

LitNet: 20 December 2005: Michelle McGrane in conversation with Ingrid Andersen
*"Four powerful new EC poets". ''Saturday Dispatch'' 2 July 2005. p. 14 *Warren, Crystal. "Out into the world" ''Wordstock'', 7 July 2005. p 2 {{DEFAULTSORT:Andersen, Ingrid 1965 births Living people Academic staff of Rhodes University South African women poets Writers from Johannesburg South African women academics African poets