Cirrus@Austlit

'P.S. Cottier (Penelope Susan Cottier) arrived in Australia on a boat from England as a baby in 1962 or early '63. She took out citizenship in 1985, which could be described as tardy. She grew up in Melbourne and attended Manningham Primary School, Templestowe High School (both now lost to the developers) and the University of Melbourne (intact last time she checked). She had a number of publications in the eighties and nineties, but then stopped seeking publication until late 2007, although she never stopped writing completely. (Tardiness is a theme here...) Since then her poetry and short stories have been published in Australia as well as the USA and the UK where she has received a number of awards. She wrote a PhD on animals in Dickens at the A.N.U. (awarded 2004) and has worked as a university tutor, a lawyer, a union organiser and a tea-lady. Her first collection of poetry, The Glass Violin, was launched in February 2009 by Geoff Page. She has a husband, a daughter and a menagerie of pets, and lives in tropical Canberra' (Biography supplied by the author).