Alan Jefferies

Who is Alan Jefferies?

Alan Jefferies is an Australian poet and children's author currently living in Brisbane.

He grew up in Cleveland on the Queensland coast. He published his first poems in 1976 and since then his work has appeared in magazines and newspapers in Australia and overseas. He holds degrees in Communication and Writing from the University of Technology, Sydney and for many years worked as a librarian and teacher at the Workers’ Educational Association, Sydney.

Between 1982 and 1992 he lived in Coalcliff south of Sydney in a house which was a meeting place for writers, poets, artists and musicians.

In 1998 he moved to Hong Kong where he lived for almost ten years. He was one of the initiators of a spoken word event called OutLoud, which takes place on the first Wednesday of each month at the Fringe Club in the Lan Kwai Fong District on Hong Kong Island. In 2002 he co-edited an anthology of work from the readings called Outloud: an anthology of poetry from OutLoud readings.

He has published five books of poetry in Australia including Blood Angels: Poems 1976-1999. In October 2004 his bilingual children’s book The crocodile who wanted to be famous, based on the real-life crocodile that visited Hong Kong, was published and attracted widespread interest from both the Chinese and English press.