Creative Student Has the Write Stuff

Friday 17th February 2006

Five stories that follow the relationship of a married couple living in Laman Street after the 1989 Newcastle earthquake have earned acclaim for a student at the University of Newcastle.

The stories by Patrick Cullen were submitted for his Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle last year.

Of the five stories submitted for the degree, three appear in publisher Black Inc.'s The Best Australian Stories 2005, a fourth story has received commendations in two separate literary awards, and the fifth was recently awarded third prize in a national short story competition.

Patrick, who is now studying a Master of Creative Arts at the University of Newcastle, says he is thrilled with the success of his stories and that 'And?', 'Mauve', and 'Collapsing Under Their Own Weight' were chosen to appear in The Best Australian Stories 2005.

"It's such a great honour to see my stories along side writers, such as Gillian Mears, Charlotte Wood, Danielle Wood and Janette Turner Hospital, who have won or been nominated for major Australian literary awards," says Patrick.

Patrick is the only writer in this collection of 25 stories with more than one story included, and is the first author in the history of Black Inc.'s Best Australian series, to have three stories included in the one collection.

Patrick, a sensory researcher in the food industry, says it was only through a chance meeting with PhD student and author, David Kelly (Fantastic Street), that he returned to university studies and decided to focus on writing.

"I'd finished an Applied Science degree at the University of Newcastle back in 1998 and a couple of years ago I was asked by my employer to look into completing a postgraduate degree in statistics."

"But after I ran into David Kelly and found out about the University's creative writing program I decided that if I was going to do any further study it would be in a field that I was passionate about. That definitely wasn't statistics!"

"For the last couple of years I have been writing short fiction and entering the stories in competitions with some success, including second prize in The Age 2003 Short Story Award."

Patrick says the trade-off for this success is less sleep. "As I work fulltime and have two children, I do most of my writing at night. The stories in The Best Australian Stories 2005 were mostly written between 10pm and 4am," says Patrick.

Patrick is now working on completing a collection of stories and a novel.

Patrick Cullen is available for interview through Public Relations at the University of Newcastle on (02) 4921 5351.