Andrew Galan has been described as a voice of the surreal, the satirical and the Australian. He writes poetry for publication and performance, his work emphasising science, characters, place and the fight for something to eat.
Commissioned and published by organisations such as the Queensland Poetry Festival, Canberra Glassworks and You Are Here, Andrew has collaborated on projects taking poetry into inner city bus interchanges, loading zones and office building windows. He has also had several residencies, including with the Project Space at Gorman Arts Centre, Playing Field Studios in Canberra’s CBD, You Are Here as writer-in-residence, and at the Can Serrat International Art Centre, Catalonia. In 2015 he received an ArtsACT Project Grant to develop his second book, For All The Veronicas (The Dog Who Staid), this book was a winner of a 2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for poetry. He is a recipient of a 2018 ArtsACT Project Grant for his next book, Fighting Poetry.
Featuring at national events including the Queensland Poetry, Australian National Folk, Red Dirt Poetry and Woodford festivals, as well as at the Corinbank, Canberra Fringe and Multicultural festivals. Andrew has shared the stage with acclaimed international poets including Buddy Wakefield (USA) and Ken Arkind (USA), and performed in Canberra with rock'n'roll poet C.R. Avery (Canada) during his 2014 tour of Australia. Andrew has also shared billing with brilliant Australian writers and performers such as David Stavanger, Lionel Fogarty, Eleanor Jackson and Adam Hadley.
In 2013 he participated in the invitation only Fringe Madrid Poetry Slam, and has featured at poetry nights nationally and internationally including the Uptown Poetry Slam in Chicago, the Dirty Gerund Poetry Show in Worcester, Ruckus Poetry Slam in Brisbane and Melbourne, the Queensland Poetry Slam in the Judith Wright Centre and Poetry Slam Madrid.
Experimentation and engagement with poetry are key elements of Andrew’s artistic practice and he established and programs poetry slam BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! which has continued since 2009 as Australia’s most engaging, eclectic and unique poetry night. BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! has been part of the National Folk, Canberra Fringe, Multicultural, Corinbank, Henry Lawson and Theatre in the Round festivals. Andrew also curates the Salt Room at the Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centres, develops events for experimental and emerging artist festival You Are Here and for writers festival Noted, which he co-founded in 2014. In 2017 he won a Canberra Critics Circle Award for his contribution to ACT poetry through the poetry events BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! and the Salt Room.
You can find Andrew’s poetry in a variety of publications, including Cordite, the Canberra Times, the Best Australian Poems, the Tundish Review, Empty Mirror, MAYDAY Magazine, Verity La, Tincture Journal, the Grapple Annual, m58, the Delinquent Magazine, Nuovi Argomenti and the Red Room Company’s, the Disappearing. His poetry has been translated and published in Spanish and Italian. In 2013, he launched his first poetry collection That Place of Infested Roads (Life During Wartime), Knives Forks and Spoons Press (UK), his second collection is out with Australian Publisher Bareknuckle Books, and he is currently working on his third manuscript.
Andrew loves being booked for festivals, gigs, workshops, collaborations, commissions and to program and host poetry events.
