Chris Mansell

Who is Chris Mansell?

Chris Mansell is an Australian poet and publisher.

Born in Sydney, Chris Mansell grew up on the Central Coast of New South Wales and in Lae, Papua New Guinea, later studying economics at the University of Sydney. She was active in Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s as an editor and poet and since the 1980s has lived in regional Australia where she continues to write, perform, publish and edit. In 1978 she and Dane Thwaites began a magazine called Compass Poetry & Prose which published many of the young Australian poets of the time. She closed the magazine in 1987 and soon after, was a member of the collective who founded Five Islands Press. She now runs PressPress, a small independent poetry press she founded in 2002.

Like many poets of her generation, Mansell makes her living by performing her work, publishing and teaching writing at various institutions. Although primarily a poet, she has also written a number of plays including Some Sunny Day. Her collection Mortifications & Lies has been described as a 'groundbreaking work' because of its experimentation with form and its overtly political content. Love Poems is less political, a livre composé which takes subtler formal risks. Always interested in experimentation with form, she now also works in digital media. She directed the Shoalhaven Poetry Festival in 2002, 2003 and 2005.