Julie Maclean grew up in Bristol, a port city in the south-west of England. She arrived in Melbourne/Naarm in 1976 with a suitcase and a new hair style. A former teacher of English and Drama in the UK and Australia, her debut collection, When I Saw Jimi ,was published as joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize in 2013 (Indigo Dreams Publishing). The manuscript had been shortlisted for The Crashaw Prize, Salt, UK, Chris Emery describing us as ‘major new talents.’ It’s a memoir of growing up in Sixties’ Britain, its music and sexual awakenings. http://cordite.org.au/reviews/elvey-maclean-hannaford/

Her second full collection, Eye (Walleah Press, September, 2024) is a memoir of her life in and around Oz and described by Anne Elvey as ‘unsettling and compelling‘. Jo Langdon says, Alert and attentive, Julie Maclean’s Eye is quick yet focused in its gaze, forming worlds anew and closely felt. These poems hold scenes of ‘melon light’, with ‘two dolphins / one for each eye’, ‘bumblebees the size of fairy wrens’, and birds ‘growling … like dogs’. Traversing landscapes inviting and violent—haunted by colonial violence—Maclean’s language is colloquial and eloquent, nimble and expansive. With ‘eyes everywhere’, her poems show how what is troubling or dangerous can be rendered ‘So easy through the lens’

‘Julie Maclean focuses her gaze on the grandeur and minutiae of a new country, the diversity and eccentricities of the modern world. Hers is a mission of ‘loving everything equally’: baby echidnas, 3D printers, anime, kangaroo paws. Maclean renders it all vivaciously, even as she mourns the unspeakable tragedy of climate change‘. -Maria Takolander

Available from the publisher: https://walleahpress.com.au/bookshop/product/maclean-julie-poetry-eye.

Her most recent chapbook/pamphlet was red was love was joint winner of the 2023 Dreich Slims Poetry Competition and published in 2024. Marion McCready says these are ‘…poems that fizz with energy, wry humour and …bathos…life observed up close with, at times, biting darkness. Not quiet poems and yet lyrical and tender, love poems refracted through bold and unexpected visuals.’ Available here: https://hybriddreich.co.uk/product/was-red-was-love-julie-maclean/.

A chapbook/pamphlet, Kiss of the Viking was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2014. Reviewed here: https://sabotagereviews.com/2014/10/17/kiss-of-the-viking-by-julie-maclean/

Maclean’s poetry explores restlessness, the vagaries of love, loss and transcience. She has collaborated with UK poet Terry Quinn in a pamphlet of reply poems, To Have to Follow (Indigo Dreams, 2016). Reviewed here: https://sabotagereviews.com/2016/11/21/to-have-to-follow-by-julie-maclean-terry-quinn/

Several Ginninderra Press Pocket Books have been recently published on the landscape of Oz: Mirage, Unsettled, Spirit, Wet Zone and Beak. Available here: https://www.ginninderrapress.com.au/chapbooks.html

Lips That Did was published by Dancing Girl Press , US. Available here: https://dulcetshop.myshopify.com/products/lips-that-did-julie-maclean

Her poetry, fiction and reviews have appeared in The Best Australian Poetry, Poetry (Chicago), Southerly, Island, The Rialto, Event, The Antigonish Review, Overland, The Age, Mslexia, BODY, Shearsman and a Smith Doorstop anthology, among others.

She has been winner and shortlisted in several poetry, fiction and non-fiction awards and has been granted a residency with Booranga Writers and attended a residency with Pascale Petit in Bezieres. A Forest went to Upton Cheyney for a Walk was selected for Wandering Words, Sensing Spaces and was presented at The Royal Academy, London in 2014.

As feature poet she has appeared in LA Cultural Review, Pieced Work, Sundress, Tania Hershman’s Blog and elsewhere.

She mentors new writers, edits and conducts creative writing workshops in every genre and is currently living on Wadawurrung country/Surf Coast, Victoria encouraging native birds, reptiles and marsupials to make a home in her bush garden sanctuary.