Meet Annette

Annette is a writer living in Sydney, Australia. She was born and grew up in Tasmania, leaving on her 18th birthday to study literature and law at the Australian National University in Canberra. She has lived, worked and studied in Sydney, London and Italy, and holds a Masters in Creative Writing and a Doctorate of Arts from the University of Sydney.

A Pushcart nominee, her short work has appeared in literary journals and anthologies in Australia, the USA, the UK and India. Her novel On a Bright Hillside in Paradise won the 2022 Penguin Literary Prize and was published in July 2023.

In Australia, Annette’s short work has appeared in TEXT Journal and the online journal Brain Drip, and was included in Signs of Life Anthology (also issued as an audio book).

In the USA she was a Pushcart nominee in 2018 for José María Writes a Story, and her work has appeared in The Writing Disorder, Typehouse, LitroNY, Litbreak, RueScribe, The New Guard, Plentitudes Journal, and in the Adelaide Literary Journal where her story Evie at the Hairdresser placed as a finalist in 2019 and was included in an anthology.

In the UK her work has been published in Confluence, The Selkie, Retreat West, Crayon Magazine and Panorama; and two essays have been published in India in the Bangalore Review.

Until 2020, Annette published under the name Annette Freeman.

Read Annette’s published stories below

Featured
Cradle Dreaming
Cradle Dreaming

There wasn’t much sunlight filtering in but the place still felt like the inside of a cathedral—not only the soaring ceilings and brilliant colours like stained glass, but also the hushed atmosphere of a place which had been sacred for centuries. King Billy Pines could live for two thousand years. When they fell they remained, moss-covered, like rows of green-cushioned pews.

The Art of War
The Art of War

The tour group, art lovers all, trotted behind our Russian guide, whom I’ll call ‘Sergei.’ We were following him through gallery after enormous gallery in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, heads swiveling…

The Dark Side of the Sun
The Dark Side of the Sun

There’s a lot of talk about how terrible the weather will be this summer, hot and windy, they say.

Starting Late: Reflections on becoming a writer
Starting Late: Reflections on becoming a writer

I have an embarrassing little secret. Let me tell you about it. The scene: an office at the university, me perched on the edge of a visitor’s chair…