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Critic of the Month

David McCooey is (in alphabetical order) an academic, critic, poet and reviewer. He lives in Geelong where he is a senior lecturer in literary studies at Deakin University. He has been a judge for a number of major literary awards, and he is on the editorial boards of a number of academic journals. He is the author of two books: a critical work, Artful Histories: Modern Australian Autobiography (CUP), which won a NSW Premier's Literary Award in 1996; and a collection of poetry, Blister Pack (Salt), which was awarded the Mary Gilmore Award for a first book of poetry in 2006. Blister Pack has also been short-listed for four other major awards (including The Age Book of the Year Award and the Melbourne Prize for Literature's 'New Writing Award'). In 2004 David McCooey edited a special issue of the journal Life Writing on 'Life Writing and the Public Sphere'. His essays, reviews and poems have appeared in numerous national and international publications, including The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, HEAT, Agenda, Meanjin and Southerly.

Five of his 'audio poems' (spoken word with original music) can be heard at:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/1844710521.htm.

David McCooey and ABR

David has been a regular contributor to ABR since the mid 1990s. He usually writes on poetry and life writing. He has written two La Trobe Essays: on the book and film versions of Dorothy Porter's The Monkey's Mask (ABR, May 2001.) and on recent Australian Autobiography, 'Going Public' (ABR, May 2006).

David McCooey on reviewing

A review should be a good piece of writing in its own right. Few people realise, I think, how much work can go into a 1000-word review. It is important to respect the book under review and to let its prospective readers know what kind of a book it is. A good review should 'place' the work under review in various ways (generically, historically, in terms of any debate or controversy surrounding it). A good review, too, can be like a mini-essay, with a larger point or points to make. Like Kerryn Goldsworthy, I prefer to make my points without lacing up the Doc Martens.


Some ABR reviews by David McCooey

La Trobe University Essay: Going Public: A Decade of Australian Autobiography, May 2006

On Craig Sherborne's Hoi Polloi, September 2005

On Verse: The Second Decade, June/July 2005

On Alan Wearne's The Lovemakers: Book Two: Money and Nothing, May 2004

On Andrew Sant's The Islanders and Kevin Brophy's Portrait in Skin, March 2003

  

More ABR critics

ABR board member Bridget Griffen-Foley is well known as a Packer biographer and media critic. She was our November Critic of the Month.

Freelance critic Kerryn Goldsworthy, a former Editor of ABR and frequent contributor, was October's Critic of the Month. Read more about Kerryn's relationship to ABR and reviewing in general here.

 

James Ley, this year's judge of the Age Book of the Year (Fiction), was our September Critic of the Month. Read more about James Ley's approach to reviewing here.

 

Our August Critic of the Month was Brenda Niall, acclaimed author of The Boyds and Judy Cassab. Read more about Brenda Niall and her reviewing career here.

 

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