Cirrus@Austlit

Caren Florance lives and works in Canberra, ACT. She has degrees in English Literature (ANU, UNSW Canberra) and Visual Arts (ANU School of Art) and undertook a PhD at the University of Canberra (UC), producing a creative body of work that interrogates the intersections of artists’ book and poetry publishing by working with four contemporary poets. She sessionally teaches book arts at the ANU School of Art Printmedia & Drawing Workshop and Typography in the Graphic Design department at UC.

Florance works with traditional book processes such as letterpress and bookbinding as well as contemporary digital technologies. She makes publications across the book arts spectrum, from zines through to fine press volumes, and much of her work is inspired by or directly drawn from Australian and NZ poetry. She was greatly inspired by her friendship with printer Alec Bolton and poet Rosemary Dobson, both of whom she regularly assisted until their respective deaths. Florance was also the typographer for the Academy Editions of Australian Literature for the entire series, working to a book design by Bolton. She continues to design and produce commercial publications on a freelance basis.