David McCooey is a poet, critic, and academic. In 2009 he was Associate Professor at Deakin University in Geelong, teaching and researching in Literary Studies and Professional and Creative Writing.
McCooey has published widely in the fields of life writing and poetry. He is the author of a number of book chapters (including the 'Contemporary Poetry' chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Australian Literature and the 'Autobiography' chapter in The Cambridge History of Australian Literature). His numerous essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in many national and international publications.
He has also written for a number of reference works, including the Dictionary of Literary Biography. From 2003-2006 he was associate editor of Space: New Writing. He is the Deputy General Editor of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (Allen & Unwin, 2009), described by Thomas Keneally as 'Unprecedented in the breadth of what it offers from both the ancient and the recent literature of the country'.
David McCooey was co-recipient of a number of ARC awards, including a Discovery Grant on Australian literature and public culture, and a Linkage Grant for the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature.
He is on the editorial boards of Antipodes and Life Writing, and he has been a judge for numerous national literary awards such as The Age Book of the Year Award and the National Biography Award. He has performed at a number of literary festivals including the Sydney Writers' Festival and the Melbourne Writers' Festival.