Hi! I'm Marina, an Adelaide-based writer, academic, and critic. I have a PhD in Creative Writing (Life Writing) from Flinders University where I teach and research. I am the 2024 Writer in Residence at The Mill in partnership with CityMag. If you'd like to read my writing or research, you can find it here. If you'd like to contact me regarding a creative project or other inquiry, please visit my Contact page.
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, Westerly, Voiceworks, Archer, and Babyteeth, amongst others. My work was shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2021, highly commended in the AAWP/Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2022, and shortlisted for the Kat Muscat Fellowship 2024.
In my research I explore life narratives, largely those which explore and represent grief and trauma. I also research and publish on materiality and pedagogy. 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.
Bio for professional & academic use:
Dr Marina Deller is a writer and researcher at Flinders University. 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. They live and create on Kaurna land.
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, Westerly, Voiceworks, and Archer amongst others, was shortlisted for the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction 2021, highly commended in the AAWP/Westerly Magazine Life Writing Prize 2022, and shortlisted for the Kat Muscat Fellowship 2024. They live and create on Kaurna land.