Megan Joan Fleming (born 1984), is an Australian/New Zealand poet, non-fiction writer and academic. In 2025, she was appointed the

Writer in Residence Artist-in-residence (also Writer-in-residence), or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs that involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs that pr ...

for the

University of Waikato The University of Waikato (), established in 1964, is a Public university, public research university located in Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton, New Zealand. An additional campus is located in Tauranga. The university performs research in nume ...

Biography

Fleming grew up in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, Australia, until employment opportunities spurred the family to relocate first to

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

, then Golden, Colorado, before finally settling in

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

, New Zealand. She studied creative writing at the

International Institute of Modern Letters The International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML; ) is a centre of creative writing based within Victoria University of Wellington. Founded in 2001, the IIML offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses (including a PhD in creative writing) ...

Victoria University Victoria University may refer to: * Victoria University (Australia), a public research university in Melbourne, Australia * Victoria University, Toronto, a constituent college of the federal University of Toronto in Canada * Victoria University of ...

, where she won the Biggs Poetry Prize in 2007. She graduated from the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

with a Master of Arts with a thesis on the iterative poetry of

Anne Carson Anne Patricia Carson (born June 21, 1950) is a Canadian poet, essayist, translator, classicist, and professor. Trained at the University of Toronto, Carson has taught classics, comparative literature, and creative writing at universities across ...

. She holds a PhD in

ethnopoetics Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e. verbal lore) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which ...

from

Monash University Monash University () is a public university, public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, a city in which she now lives. Fleming's grandparents were stationed as

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Miss ...

in the town of

Yuendumu Yuendumu is a town in the Northern Territory of Australia, northwest of Alice Springs on the Tanami Road, within the Central Desert Region local government area. It ranks as one of the larger remote communities in central Australia, and has a ...

, in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

of Australia. As a result, she has an ongoing interest in Warlpiri culture, with much of her poetry and non-fiction work focusing on themes of cultural misunderstandings, the limits of language, and the continuing effects of

colonialism Colonialism is the control of another territory, natural resources and people by a foreign group. Colonizers control the political and tribal power of the colonised territory. While frequently an Imperialism, imperialist project, colonialism c ...

. More recent work also explores such themes as

eco-feminism Ecofeminism integrates feminism and political ecology. Ecofeminist thinkers draw on the concept of gender to analyze relationships between humans and the natural world. The term was coined by the French writer Françoise d'Eaubonne in her 1974 ...

and

ecological collapse An ecosystem, short for ecological systems theory, system, is defined as a collection of interacting Organism, organisms within a biophysical environment. Ecosystems are never static, and are continually subject to both stabilizing and destabiliz ...

. She has published a number of collections of poetry, as well as writing and co-editing works of literary criticism, essays, short stories and book reviews for publications in Australia, New Zealand and overseas.

Awards and honours

Fleming's honours include the Biggs Poetry Prize, the Verge Prize for Poetry and the Harri Jones Memorial Prize from the Hunter Writers Centre in 2017. In 2021, she was shortlisted for the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest award for her unpublished manuscript ''Dirt''.

Publications

; Poetry * ''Song of Less'' (Cordite, 2021) * ''Some People’s Favourites'' (Desperate Literature, 2019) * ''Failed Love Poems'' (Victoria UP, 2015) * ''The Same As Yes'' (Victoria UP, 2011) * ''Two Dreams in Which Things Are Taken'' (Duets, 2010) ; Non-Fiction * ''Dressing for the Apocalypse'' (''Island'', 2021) * ''Pulling Up the Walls'' (''Verge'', Monash UP, 2021) * ''Write First, Apologise Later?'' (''Pantograph Punch'', 2020) * ''Notes Toward a Theory of Making'' (''Westerly 64.1'', 2019) * ''Kardiya as Kindergartner: The Poetics of Ignorance in the Central Desert'' (''Meanjin 78.1,'' 2019) * ''Seated between the eyes of two worlds: the Intercultural work of Craig San Roque'' (''Philosophy Activism Nature 13,'' 2018) * ''The limits of knowledge: A reflexive reading of Warlpiri poetics'' (''JEASA 9.1,'' 2018) * ''On Misunderstanding, Masquerade, and the Prose Poem'' (''Bonsai: Best Small Stories from Aotearoa New Zealand'') ; Editor * ''Verge 2015'' (Monash UP, 2015)

References

Monash University alumni 1984 births Living people {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, Joan Poets from Sydney 21st-century Australian poets 21st-century Australian women writers Australian women poets International Institute of Modern Letters alumni University of Otago alumni