Postcards from the Centre is Ron Pretty’s seventh book of poetry. He has been publishing his poetry for more than 40 years. Previous books include Of the Stone: New and Selected Poems in 2000 and the chapbooks On the Hay Plain, (2007) and Where the Heart Is (2009). His book of the writing of poetry, Creating Poetry, was fi rst published by Edward Arnold and was reissued in 2002 in a revised edition. He was editor of the literary/arts magazine scarp: New Arts & Writing from 1984 to 1999. He has taught writing in schools, universities and community groups throughout Australia and in US, England and Austria. From 1983 to 1998 he was Head of Writing in the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. While there, he helped establish the South Coast Writers’ Centre. Until he retired in 2007, he was the director of Five Islands Press, a leading publisher of contemporary Australian poetry which published 230 books by Australian poets in the 20 years since it was founded in Wollongong in 1986. Between 2000 and 2007, he ran the Poetry Australia Foundation, a community based, non-profi t-making organisation which was established to promote the writing, reading, reviewing and promotion of poetry in this country.

The PAF has now been superseded by the Australian Poetry Centre, which he helped establish in 2007. He was based at the University of Melbourne, 2003 – 2007 where he taught creative writing. He was managing editor of Blue Dog: Australian Poetry 2002 – 2007. He worked with Bradley Trevor Greive and BTG Studios in the administration of the Taronga Foundation Poetry Prize 2003 – 2009. Ron Pretty won the NSW Premier’s Special Prize for services to literature in 2001 and received an AM for services to Australian literature in 2002.