Tasmanian-born Rosemary Nissen-Wade lived most of her adult life in Melbourne, where she worked for 18 years as a librarian. She is also a trained Adult Literacy teacher.
In the eighties and and nineties, as Rosemary Nissen, she was known as a widely-published performance poet and independent publisher of Australian poetry (under the Abalone Press imprint and as a member of the Pariah Press Co-op). She also had fiction and articles published, wrote book reviews for various literary magazines, and was a Professional Writing tutor at Holmesglen and Box Hill TAFE Colleges and the Victorian College of the Arts (which is now part of the University of Melbourne).
Nowadays she has become Rosemary Nissen-Wade, lives in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, does some professional copy-editing, has embraced blogging and social networking, disseminates her poetry online, and does voluntary work at Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre.
She is the author of:
- Universe Cat. Melbourne, Pariah Press, 1985. (Out of print.)
- Small Poems of April. Three Bridges, Vic., Abalone Press, 1992. (Out of print.)
- Secret Leopard: new and selected poems 1974-2005. Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2006. Available from the author and from Amazon.
- An ongoing series of chapbooks available for reading or download here.
Rosemary started the WordsFlow writers' group in October 2006. In April of that year she was invited to Texas as a featured reader at the Austin International Poetry Festival and other arts and poetry events around Texas. Her local community was very supportive in helping her get there. On her return she wanted to give something back — preferably something that would nurture her too. She conferred with the Neighbourhood Centre, and WordsFlow was the result.
