Vanessa Berry

Vanessa Berry lives and works on Gadigal land. Her work examines autobiography, history, memory, material objects and the urban environment. She is the author of Gentle and Fierce (2021), Mirror Sydney (2017), Ninety 9 (2013) and Strawberry Hills Forever (2007), the zine series I am a Camera (2000-) and the blog Mirror Sydney. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Sydney.

Works By Vanessa Berry

Circuit
When waiting for a train nothing more is required than presence. This is a stretch of time without additional expectations. Do something or do nothing. Compose thoughts, or don’t. Be attentive, be distracted, the train will arrive regardless.
20 Mar. 2022
Perec’s Cat
Perec had a succession of pet cats, all of which went by the name Duchat. The Duchats had an essential quality by which one could transform into another.
18 July. 2021
In the Catalogue
I walked with the knowledge that inside the present-day city are many times and layers, and that writing is a way of drawing them out. A novel and a department store, a hair net, a square of corduroy fabric in a catalogue, and a photograph of wome...
15 Nov. 2020
The Writer's Clutter
In the process of writing, clutter accumulates. A writer's clutter can be physical, like the bundles of papers, notes, and books on my desk. It can be processual: the swarm of edits on the marked-up page of a draft, or the ‘offcuts’ file of this e...
1 Dec. 2019
Letter from Iceland
Live in a place and it weaves into your identity, its atmospheres entwining with your own. To write of these atmospheres is to examine the texture of the weave and how self and place are braided together. In Sydney I have a lifelong relationship t...
12 Oct. 2017
Excavating St Peters
‘Sydney Park, with its curved expanses of grass and pockets of trees, is a verdant moonscape, a constructed topography of rises and falls. From the top of the highest hill the park seems caught between the city skyline and Botany Bay to the south,...
28 Sept. 2016

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Vanessa Berry

Works By Vanessa Berry

Circuit

Perec’s Cat

In the Catalogue

The Writer's Clutter

Letter from Iceland

Excavating St Peters

Works Featuring Vanessa Berry

Snail Trails

Eccentric Guides: Vanessa Berry's Mirror Sydney