Fay Zwicky was a Senior Lecturer in English literature at the University of Western Australia. She now devotes her time entirely to writing. She has received many literary awards for her writing, including the 1982 NSW Premier’s Award for Poetry for Kaddish and Other Poems and the 1991 Western Australian Premier’s Award for Poetry for Ask Me. In 1993 she published the collection Fay Zwicky: Poems 1970–1992. Her collection The Gatekeeper’s Wife, published by Brandl & Schlesinger, won the 1999 WA Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry. In 2005 she was awarded the Patrick White Award and the FAW Christopher Brennan Award, and was made a State Living Treasure of Western Australia in 2004. Her most recent collection, Picnic, was published in 2006 and in 2007 she was awarded the New South Wales Premier’s Award for Poetry.  She died in July 2017.