Kate McNamara's Musings

About Kate

Kate McNamara is a poet, playwright and critical theorist. For almost ten years she worked as a dramtaurg with Splinters Theatre Company in Canberra, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. She constructed Faust-The Heat of Knowledge as part of the Australian National University’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations. She was elected to the A.N.U. Emeritus Faculty for her services in the creative arts to her beloved Alma Mater. McNamara’s other works include The Rule of Zip, In the Secret Room, and The Year of the Dog. Her works have been performed throughout Australia, and in Japan, Ireland, Canada and Greece. In 1998 McNamara was invited to Galway to deliver the Keynote Address to the Fourth International Conference of Women Playwrights.

McNamara has always disliked mainstage theatre and worked extensively within the Australian Surrealism Movement as a founding member of underground, cult group Aktion Surreal and later collaborating in establishing Aberrant Genotype Press. Her printed works include Leaves, an anthropological journey through the writer’s unconscious; as well as poetry, short stories and critical theory in a range of journals.

She was mentored in the theatrical arts by the legendary Dorothy Hewett and raised in the poetic arts by A.D.Hope. She likes working in the edges of different cross-arts horizons and feeds off implacable challenges. She lives in Canberra with her children, her cats and her home is often called The Sherbrooke Gallery.

She has been dragged into Web Two Land, somewhat unwillingly, by the very dedicated and persistent Dr. Megan Poore.

Visual works on this site include photography by ‘pling, Fiona Edge and McNamara as well as images of art works from the collection of Marney Virginia Blattman.