Cirrus@Austlit

David Prater spent his childhood in various country towns before moving to Sydney to complete an honours degree in Australian literature at the University of Sydney. He has worked since in a variety of social, educational and health policy settings. In 2005 Prater graduated from the Department of English with Cultural Studies (University of Melbourne) with an M.A. degree. He is proceeding with Ph.D studies at the Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of Technology. His thesis examines the phenomena of self-publishing and vanity publishing in the field of Australian literature. In late 2004, Prater received an emerging writer's grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. He was also awarded an Asialink Writer's Residency (2005) to teach a course in Australian culture at the Sogang University, Seoul and further his study of publishing and information technology in Korea.

Prater edits Cordite Poetry Review, an online poetry and poetics journal funded by the Australia Council for the Arts. His first chapbook, The Happy Farang, was published by Pumpkin Press in 2000. His second, 8 poems, was published by du papa in 2002. His work has appeared in most major Australian journals and several anthologies including Short Fuse: The Global Anthology of Fusion Poetry (2002) and Best Australian Poetry 2003 (2003).  Prater has resided in Europe.