Craig Cormick

Craig Cormick OAM is an Australian science communicator and author. He was born in Wollongong in 1961, and is known for his creative writing and social research into public attitudes towards new technologies. He has lived mainly in Canberra, but has also lived in Iceland (1980–81) and Finland (1984–85). He has published over 40 books of fiction and non-fiction, and numerous articles in refereed journals. He has been active in the Canberra writing community, teaching and editing, was Chair of the ACT Writers Centre from 2003 to 2008 and in 2006 was Writer in Residence at the University of Science in Penang, Malaysia.

Craig Cormick with his book, Time Vandals, in 2012.

Cormick's creative writing has appeared in most of Australia's literary journals including Southerly, Westerly, Island, Meanjin, The Phoenix Review, Overland, Scarp, 4W, Redoubt, Block, as well as in overseas publications including Silverfish New Writing (Malaysia) and Foreign Literature No 6 (China). He has previously been an editor of the radical arts magazine Blast, and his writing awards include the ACT Book of the Year Award in 1999[1] a Queensland Premier's Literary Award in 2006, a Victorian Community History Award in 2015, the ACT Writing and Publishing Award in 2015 and the Tasmanian Writers' Prize in 2016.

As a science communicator he has worked for the CSIRO, Questacon and the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science, and has represented the Australian Government at many international science forums including Apec and OECD conferences, presenting on issues relating to public concerns about new technologies. In 2013 he was awarded the Unsung Hero of Science Communications by the Australian Science Communicators. Since 2019 he has been serving on the Advisory Board on Education and Outreach to the Nobel Prize Winning Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

Cormick was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours "service to science, and to the community".[2]

Literary career

Craig Cormick went on to study journalism and creative writing at the University of Canberra – both areas which he continues to work in – with stints at the Canberra School of Art, the University of Iceland and Helsinki University. He returned to the University of Canberra to study languages, public relations and sociology, undertake a Masters in Communications and then completed a PhD in Creative Communications at Deakin University in 2007.

His first books were self-published or picked up by small presses until Unwritten Histories was published by Aboriginal Studies Press in 1998. The book subsequently won the ACT Book of the Year Award and received praising reviews. His work has a strong sense of satire, across themes that include exploration, isolation, duality and Ned Kelly (who appears at least once in each of his eight short story collections). He has written and published, on average, one book a year since 1998, including collections of short fiction, novels and non-fiction.

He has published scholarly articles on public attitudes to new technologies in publications including: NanoEthics, the International Journal of Biotechnology[3] Agricultural Science, Historia Ciencias Saude[4] (Brazil) and Choices (USA). He also authored the Australian Government reports, Cloning Goes to the Movies, and What you really need to know about what the public really thinks about GM foods.

In 2008 he fulfilled "a life's dream"[5] and travelled to Antarctica as an Antarctic Arts Fellow, visiting the three Australian stations on the continent, Casey, Davis and Mawson, publishing his experiences as In Bed with Douglas Mawson: Travels around Antarctica, in 2011, which merges his two interests of science and creative writing.

In 2014 and 2015 he published the acclaimed the Shadow Master series with Angry Robot books, in the US and UK, as was a guest author at the Convergence fan convention in Minneapolis, and at WorldCon in Helsinki in 2018. In 2015 he also took part in the Yale Writers Conference.

Writing awards

Works

Books published

Books edited
  • Snapshots, Oak Publications, Malaysia, 2006. ISBN 978-983-3735-03-7.
  • Co-editor of Meeting of Muses, Mockingbird Press, 2003. ISBN 1-74027-177-7.
  • Co-editor of The Circulatory System, Mockingbird Press, 2001. ISBN 1-74027-112-2.
  • Co-editor of Time Pieces, Mockingbird Press, 1999. [*Commended in the Victorian FAW Community Writer's Award, 1999]. ISBN 1-876259-83-3.
  • Protesting the Testing: Canberra Writers Speak Out Against Nuclear Testing in the Pacific, 1995, (Left Book Club (ACT) and PEN (ACT)). ISBN 1-875285-18-0.

Academic publications

References
  1. ACT Book of the Year Award 1999
  2. "Dr Craig Cormick". It's An Honour. Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
  3. Inderscience (IJB): "Perceptions of risk relating to biotechnology in Australia" by Craig Cormick
  4. Historias Ciencias Saude: "Cloning Goes to the Movies" by Craig Cormick
  5. A Voyage Around Mawson, The Canberra Times, 18 June 2010.
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