Hi! I'm Marina, an Adelaide-based writer, academic, critic, and bookseller. I have a PhD in Creative Writing (Life Writing) from Flinders University, where I am an award-winning teacher of Creative Writing, Life Writing, and English Literature. I also regularly teach Foundation Studies and academic skills at a tertiary level as well as providing learning support in my roles as a Learning Advisor for the Flinders Student Learning Support Service and tutor for the Yunkgurrinthi Tutorial Program. At Matilda Bookshop, an Adelaide Hills institution, I work as a bookseller where I talk about books everyday, conduct author interviews, and run a middle-grade children's book club.
In my creative practice I examine identity, queer experience, bodies, grief, and public/private spheres. I write short creative non-fiction, short stories, poetry, and hybrid works incorporating materials, art, and photography. My writing appears in InDaily, The Conversation, Voiceworks, Archer, and Babyteeth, Westerly, amongst others. My work was shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2021 and highly commended in the AAWP/Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2022.
In my research I explore fragmented life narratives of grief and trauma. I look at material objects and personal possessions as part of storytelling about loss. As a practice-led researcher my research and writing inform one another and I enjoy exploring links between academic and creative work. While I research personal archives and cardboard boxes, much of my research is about thinking outside and beyond 'the box' and asking questions about materiality and reality, personhood and objectification, creative flow and creative paralysis. Such work has been published in a/b: Auto/Biography Studies and Life Writing. I'm also an active member of the Life Narrative Lab.
If you'd like to read my writing or research, you can find it here. Further details about my academic work can be found on my LinkedIn profile, here. Finally, if you'd like to contact me regarding a creative project or other inquiry, please visit my Contact page.
Bio for professional & academic use:
Dr Marina Deller is an Adelaide-based writer and researcher at Flinders University of South Australia on Kaurna land. Their research concerns grief and trauma life narratives, material storytelling, and creative pedagogy. They write about identity, bodies, grief, and public/private spheres. Marina teaches Creative Writing and English Literature and is affiliated with the Flinders Life Narrative Lab.
Bio for creative use:
Marina Deller (they/she) is a writer, critic, and creative with a PhD in Life Writing. When they aren’t sewing or spoiling their cat, Atlas, they tell stories of identity, bodies, and grief. Their work appears in InDaily, The Conversation, Voiceworks, and Archer amongst others, was shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2021, and highly commended in the AAWP/Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2022. They tweet @marinadeller and work on Kaurna land.