Born in Johannesburg, Anne Kellas grew up under the apartheid regime. As a young writer she was part of a group of writers known as the 'Circle of Eight' who met at the home of Lionel Abraham, poet and publisher. In South Africa, her work appeared in Quarry, Sesame and much later, after emigrating, in the anthologies A Writer In Stone (David Philip, Cape Town, 1998) and Like a House on Fire (COSAW, Johannesburg, 1994) and the Columbia (NY) feature on South African writing in 1986.
She migrated to Australia in her thirties, after the first state of emergency in South Africa was declared, along with her husband and two children, and settled in Tasmania. Her first book, Poems from Mt Moono, published in 1989, reflects this time. Its 'Introduction to the Author', an introductory poem by Lionel Abrahams, is a biographical statement about Kellas. The book ends with a suite of 'Tasmanian poems'. Her second book, Isolated States, was published in 2001, containing early work written in the UK in the 1970s as well as later work written in Tasmania, and ends with a suite of 'Johannesburg poems'.
In Tasmania, Kellas has worked as a librarian and online publisher (e.g., The Write Stuff) and teaches poetry and mentors poets. Her 2015 collection, The White Room Poems, was written in response to the death of her younger son, received acclaim and was shortlisted for the Margaret Scott Prize. Of this book, Kevin Hart wrote: 'It is difficult for a poet to learn from Paul Celan and remain a poet. André du Bouchet is one, and Anne Kellas is another'. In 2018, The Netted Air (the Picaro Poets series) appeared. It contains a sample of Kellas's earlier work. A fourth poetry collection was in preparation in 2022.
