AustLit

Suzanne Spunner grew up in Melbourne and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a B. A. (Hons.) (1972) and a Dip. Ed. (1973). In 1975 she was co-ordinator of the International Women's Film Festival in Melbourne; from 1976 to 1978 a reviewer for the Melbourne Times; and from 1977 to 1978 a co-ordinator of the feminist journal Lip. From 1977 to 1979 she was a senior tutor at Deakin University, and in 1978 was seconded to the Open University in the United Kingdom. She conducted a weekly radio programme on theatre in 1979, and was also the Victorian editor of Theatre Australia. In 1980 she was a lecturer in Australian studies and theatre for the School of Drama at the Victorian College of the Arts. She was a reviewer for the Melbourne Times in 1981, and in 1987 moved with her family to Darwin. In 1988, 1991 and 1994 she received fellowships from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Spunner was also a founding member of the Home Cooking Theatre Company, and established Paradise Productions in Darwin. She has been a board member of the Australian National Playwrights Centre in Sydney, and 24 Hr Art : the Northern Territory Centre for Contemporary Art.

Spunner's unpublished plays include Edna for the Garden (1989), Safe 'n Sound : the driver as mother (1989) and The Ingkata's Wife (1990). She has also been co-compiler of a number of textbooks in Australian studies published by the Deakin University School of Humanities.

Major source : 'Spunner, Suzanne Sylvia (1951 - )', National Foundation for Australian Women, Australian Women's Archives Project , http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE0095b.htm (sighted 25.2.08)