ARE YOU A VIVID DREAMER?

I am that wonderfully unfortunate combination of a vivid dreamer and a very anxious person, which means my night-time world is often terrifying. Dreaming is not creative or poetic time for me.

WHERE ARE YOU HAPPIEST?

My favourite place is a half-filled café, at a table by myself with a book and a milky coffee. I love the ritual: deliberately taking the time and space away from the social world, whilst still being able to eavesdrop on strangers having gossipy breakfasts with their friends.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE FILM?

Adaptation – Nicholas Cage's best performance (not hard).

AND YOUR FAVOURITE BOOK?

There are too many to choose just one. My favourites this year are Georgia Blain's Between a Wolf and a Dog and Rajith Savanadasa's Ruins.

NAME THE THREE PEOPLE YOU WOULD MOST LIKE TO DINE WITH.

Gertrude Stein, Joan Didion, and Virginia Woolf.

WHICH WORD DO YOU MOST DISLIKE, AND WHICH WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE BACK IN PUBLIC USAGE?

Inspired by Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts, I'm trying to cut the word 'sorry' from my vocabulary, except for instances where I'm actually at fault and genuinely mean to apologise. And I'd love to hear the word 'loury' more often, it's beautiful.

WHO IS YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHOR?

Margaret Atwood, for her guts and passion.

AND YOUR FAVOURITE LITERARY HERO AND HEROINE?

Sally Banner from Dorothy Hewett's The Chapel Perilous ('a rebel in word and deed') and J.S. Harry's ever-curious Peter Henry Lepus.

WHICH QUALITY DO YOU MOST ADMIRE IN A WRITER?

Curiosity.

NAME AN EARLY LITERARY IDOL OR INFLUENCE WHOM YOU NO LONGER ADMIRE – OR VICE VERSA.

My early poetry was heavily influenced by Dylan Thomas – full of beautifully strange strings of compound adjectives, of the 'slow, black, sloe-black, fishing-boat-bobbing' variety. It's an incredibly joyful way to write, but I think it grows frustrating for a reader very quickly, so my poems now are much more sparse and pared-back.

WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IMPEDES YOUR WRITING?

Self-doubt, my tendency to spread myself too thin, and the internet, in that order.

HOW DO YOU REGARD PUBLISHERS?

They work incredibly hard and for far too little money, and are often just as passionate about our books as we writers are.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE STATE OF CRITICISM?

It's far more robust than is usually credited, and full of lively discussions and agitations. I'm especially excited by the work that is happening around gender disparity and what we need to do to address that.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF WRITERS' FESTIVALS?

I love festivals, partly because I enjoy performing, but also because it's such a treat to spend entire weekends hanging out with other writers and like-minded misfits.

DO YOU FEEL ARTISTS ARE VALUED IN OUR SOCIETY?

The recent attacks on the Australia Council and our small organisations make it evident enough that we are not.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?

More essays, which I hope will be the start of a new collection, and are really about place – suburbs especially – and the way so much of our identity, built up through habits and rituals, is so firmly anchored in the places where we live and which we move through every day.