Gillian Polack

The wonderful thing about reaching a certain age is that I have a rich past full of interesting events. How much do I admit to here? As little as possible. Or maybe just the impressive bits.

I currently live in Canberra, Australia.

So many people ask what I do. Mostly, just at this moment, I say that I’m a writer. All my interests revolve back towards writing. I used to explain that I was a food historian or a Medievalist or a book reviewer. Sometimes I still say that I edit (for I do). Sometimes I say that I teach, for I adore teaching and tend to acquire the most interesting students. I have a research side, which you can see from some of my publications. All these are true. I also advise writers (often about history, but also about grammar and the publishing world), and various other people about various other things. In 2010 (which is when the first version of this “About me” was created) those ‘other people’ included the guides at the Jewish Museum of Australia (on Jewish food history); writers on world-building and on the Middle Ages, on cultural matters and on punctuation; a farmer on the serious subject of peacocks; the Jane Austen Festival on dinner parties; a community group on writing reviews; an editor on how social media worked; and… that’s probably enough. That was a quiet year, too. Since then I’ve had busy years, and I’m scared to list what I’ve done. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter if you want to know what’s happening, or you can follow my work more closely (and support it!) on Patreon.

I have a doctorate in English and another in History and an MA in Medieval Studies and have six novels published and am a member of Book View Café. While I like to claim that the second doctorate is purely for cosmetic purposes (so that people can make puns about my name, for instance, which they do, since I am now Dr Dr GP and a Dr Who fan which makes me the Three Doctors and explains much) it’s actually a change in career. While I’m still a practising historian, the writing and editing and the teaching of writing and its various tools are the centre of my life. The centre of my research is how different aspects of culture change the stories we tell.