Annabel Smith
Writer and Mentor
Dr Annabel Smith has more than two decades experience as an educator, from early classroom experience working with intellectually disabled primary students as an integration aide, to teaching academic research & writing; lecturing, tutoring and mentoring. After a successful career as a corporate trainer in Melbourne, she taught English as a Second Language and academic skills at Edith Cowan College, to international students embarking on higher degrees.
She studied literature and history and has a PhD in Creative Writing. Passionate about sharing her love of language, literature and creative writing with teachers and students, Annabel currently tutors English, and ATAR English and Literature to high school students, and mentors early career writers. She also teaches writing for the Australian Writers Centre and has delivered dozens of workshops at writers centres, regional and metropolitan libraries, and festivals, on all aspects of the craft of writing, including the psychology behind procrastination, self-doubt & habit formation.
She is the author of groundbreaking digital-interactive novel/app The Ark, for which she received one of only five inaugural Creative Australia Fellowships from the Australia Council for the Arts. She is also the author of US bestseller Whisky Charlie Foxtrot, and A New Map of the Universe, which was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards, as well as essays, short stories and articles in many of Australia’s prestigious literary journals.
As panellist and chair she has appeared at numerous national and international writers festivals, speaking on topics ranging from digital/interactive fiction to self-publishing and social media for writers. She is a regular short story competition judge, and a former member of the editorial board at Margaret River Press.
