Beth Spencer

Beth Spencer is an Australian author who writes a mix of fiction, poetry, memoir and essay.

Her most recent book is The Age of Fibs: stories, memoir, microlit (SW, 2022).

Previous books include Vagabondage, a verse memoir about the year she lived in a campervan; How to Conceive of a Girl (fiction, Random House); and The Party of Life, a bilingual (English-Chinese) poetry collection from ASM/Flying Islands.

Her awards include the Age Short Story Award, runner up for the Steele Rudd Award (for How to Conceive of a Girl), and the Inaugural Dinny O’Hearn Fellowship. She has received several fellowships from the Literature Board of the Australia Council and her work has been supported by CreateNSW. In 2006 she was awarded a PhD for her thesis, 'The Body as Fiction / Fiction as a Way of Thinking'.

Beth has also had essays, opinion pieces and articles published widely in Australian newspapers such as the Age and Canberra Times, in academic journals, and broadcast on ABC Radio National. A double CD of her radio pieces, Body of Words, was published by dogmedia.

Her campervan, Vandelicious, has moved on to new owners and new adventures and she now lives in a tiny house on the NSW central coast, surrounded by birds and waterdragons, and at www.bethspencer.com.