Fiona Place's first novel Cardboard won the 1990 National Book Council QANTAS New Writer's Award.

'While this is not the first novel that tells the story of a psychotherapy it must rank as an outstanding example of the genre. In the issues Cardboard raises for the practising therapist it is of greater interest than Marie Cardinal's 'The Words to Say It" and rivals Nina Herman's 'My Kleinian Home. As a creative work the immediacy of its descriptive style and the daring interjection of frank poetry into the poetic prose mark it as both orignal and winningly readable.' John Parkinson

Her second book, the co-authored self-help book When Eating is Everything, was published in 1991. Written with psychologists Jill Ball and Phyllis Butow, Fiona examined the role language plays in the construction of eating disorders and how diary writing can assist in the recovery process.

Working as a community writer-in-residence she developed the programme 'Find and Own your Own Voice' which ran at both Prince Henry and Westmead (Redbank) hospitals. It included a weekly writing group for both in and outpatients, individual sessions for both patients and staff, plus continued research into how creative writing can be of use in the recovery from certain psychiatric disorders.

She has received several grants from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and in 1992 she was awarded the NSW Ministry for the Arts Writer's Fellowship for a book on travel writing. In 1993 she was a resident at the Keesing Studio, Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris.

More recently she applied her fascination with language to the world of finance. And concentrating on making investment and economic concepts accessible to the average reader she contributed to the opinion page of the Australian Financial Review and for several years had her own column Debt & Equity in the Australian.

Currently she still works in the area of financial literacy and investor communication. She is also interested in writing about disability and is still an occasional fiction writer. She is mother to three boys.

Academic qualifications:
BA, Sydney University
Graduate Diploma in Communication, University of Technology, Sydney
Master of Arts (Creative Writing), University of Technology, Sydney
Certificate in Financial Markets, SIA Institute

Should you wish to suggest topics please contact Fiona.
 

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