About Rosemary

Lifelong poet, from age 7. (My Mum swore it was even earlier, but this is what I remember.) I've dabbled in fiction and journalism too, and some even got printed, but poetry's the great passion. I also like blogging and am currently working on two memoirs, one about the first 12 months or so of widowhood, the other about the esoteric aspects of my life. (I'm a Reiki Master, a professional psychic medium and I follow a Pagan spiritual path — all of which have involved some startling inner and outer journeys.)

I was born in Launceston, Tasmania, where I felt nurtured by the natural beauty all around me. I moved to Victoria in 1955, when I was 15 and didn't have much say in the matter. After two miserable years in the flat, dry Sunraysia district around Mildura, while I finished High School, I then lived mostly in Melbourne until 1994. Since November 1994 I have been a resident of Northern Rivers, NSW. I plan to stay! I like small town living, being surrounded by mountains, rivers and forests, and within cooee of the ocean — and I prefer a sub-tropical climate to the one I grew up in.

Education: BA University of Melbourne 1962; majors Eng. Lit., Philosophy.

Career in librarianship 1962-1980.
Professional Tarot reader and psychic medium 1988+.
Reiki Master 1992+.

Independent publisher as part of Pariah Press Co-op Ltd. 1984-94, and as proprietor of Abalone Press 1982-92.

1984-1994 taught Poetry section of Professional Writing courses, Holmesglen College of TAFE, Victoria College, Toorak (which later became part of Deakin University), and Box Hill College of TAFE (not all at the same time).

Originally published poetry as Rosemary Nissen. After remarriage in 1993, became known professionally as Rosemary Nissen-Wade (in private life, just Rosemary Wade).

Books: 

Universe Cat (Melb., Pariah Press, 1995) out of print. 

Small Poems of April (Three Bridges, Vic., Abalone Press, 1991) out of print.

Secret Leopard: new and selected poems 1974-2005 (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005) available from Collected Works bookshop, Melbourne, and online from Amazon or from the author via www.nissen-wade.com

In earlier days I was perhaps best-known as both a dynamic performance poet and an innovative workshop leader. I visited Texas in both those capacities in 2006, as a featured guest of the Austin International Poetry Festival, Forrest Fest LaMesa, and other poetry gigs. I have done occasional local performances before and since, but am now busier with other ventures. The performance career was solidly backed by print publication of my work. In the seventies to nineties my poetry was widely published in newspapers, literary magazines and anthologies within Australia, and occasionally featured on radio.

These days I have embraced the online (international) poetry world. I do contribute to print publications when invited, e.g. Notes for the Translators, ed.Kit Kelen and Beyond the Dark Room, ed. Pearl Ketover Prilik, as well as e-publications such as Ocho #24 (the first anthology of twitter poets) ed. Collin Kelley and Didi Menendez. I co-administer various poetry groups on facebook (some of which began on MySpace in its heyday) and write a weekly column 'I Wish I'd Written This' for the online poetry community Poets United. For just over seven years, until retiring from it in December 2013, I was facilitator of the 'real-life' writers' group WordsFlow at Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, which catered for all genres and levels of experience.

I blog my poetry at The Passionate Crone and Stones for the River. I do a lot of work on my poems at the point of creation, but as I am prolific they suffer from a lack of further revision — something I plan to rectify in 2014, with a view to assembling a series of e-chapbooks.

Also see my website (which has links to all my blogs): www.nissen-wade.com