Anne Benjamin

Anne Benjamin is a Sydney-based writer and educator with roots in the Hunter Valley of NSW and strong links with South India. Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction has been published in journals and anthologies in Australia, Japan, India, UK, New Zealand, USA and Canada. She has poetry in anthologies resulting from the Montreal Poetry Prize (2011) and the ACU Literary Prize (2014, 2018, 2019). Her more recent books are “Gemstones”, an anthology of tanka written in collaboration with local and international poets (2016); “Not Forgotten, Australian Catholic Educators 1820-2020”, an anthology of biographies co-edited with Seamus O’Grady (2020); “Leadership in a synodal church”, co-authored with Charles Burford (2021).

Anne has experience in teaching, administration, leadership, governance and consultancy in education, higher education and ministry. She has worked with the Lutheran Church of Australia, Sydney Anglicare, Catholic dioceses across Australia, as well as in Tonga, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and India. She served as Executive Director of schools in the Diocese of Parramatta from 1997-2005 and is an Honorary Fellow of University of Western Sydney and Honorary Professor at Australian Catholic University. In 2020, she was awarded the Papal honour of Dame of St Gregory the Great. She and her husband have three adult children and one granddaughter.