I’m an Australian-born, New York-based author, critic and researcher who has written about art, film and culture for a range of publications. I have a PhD in Art History & Film Studies from the University of Sydney, where I taught for several years.

I’ve published two books: Identity, Community and Australian artists, 1890-1914: Paris, London & Further Afield (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) and Trouble Every Day, a study of Claire Denis’ 2001 film in the Devil’s Advocates series (Auteur/Liverpool University Press, 2021). My next book, Man-Eater, is part of a very long-term project “Man-Eater: Cannibal Women in Contemporary Visual Culture”. Recent book chapters include ‘Women in Horror Film Festivals: Representation, Dark Storytelling and an International Community of Filmmakers’, in Bloody Women: Women Directors of Horror (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) and ‘Blood Lust: Realism, Violent Inspiration, and the Artist in Horror Cinema’, in Screening the Art World (Amsterdam University Press, 2022).

I’ve spoken about film at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, Ax Wound Film Festival, BAFTSS Horror Studies, Cine-Excess, Fear 2000, Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, The Future of Horror is Female, Nightstream Film Festival, and The Miskatonic Institute of Horror. I’ve also guested on podcasts, including Somebody’s Watching, Final Girls Feast, A Year in Horror, Woman in Revolt, and also on the local radio program Your Niche is Dead.

I’ve also had the pleasure of being on the competition jury for Brooklyn Horror Film Festival (2022) and a judge for Take48 (2023), Ax Wound Film Festival (2021) and the ATOM Awards (2019).

From 2022-2023, I was lucky to have participated in ‘Doing Women’s (Global) (Horror) Film History’, a year-long training and mentoring programme for critics working on women horror filmmakers in non-anglophone countries led by Alison Peirse. My video essay and accompanying statement, on the image of Ophelia in Mari Asato’s Gekijōban: Zero/Fatal Frame (2014), was  published in a special videographic issue of MAI (2024).

I used to run the newsletter Final Girls & Femme Fatales (2015-2019), indulging my long-term fascination (ahem, obsession?) with horror cinema. It started with the premise that the genre includes a broad spectrum of films, so if you thought “horror” just meant never-ending slasher franchises or exploitation movies, let me convince you otherwise. I promised to always include pictures (I doubt I’ll ever un-learn my training as an art historian). Despite the name, the topics didn’t just focus on representations of women – one of my most popular posts was on how Australia is trying to kill you. “Dancing women: strange scenes in early 1970s horror”, inspired by one of my most niche research areas – dance in horror cinema – was chosen for TinyLetter Forwards (one newsletter delivered to subscribers every other week). With the ensuing influx of readers, I started receiving feedback from strangers that made me realize just how large – and supportive! – the horror community was.

I’ve worked across various professions and media: I can produce sharp newsletters, manage social media accounts or help shape a new business proposal. I could write you a review, press release, speech, film synopsis, research proposal, essay, artwork label text, digital copy, Instagram caption or fairly average haiku. Because I’m trained in visual communication, I work especially well with multi-media content. I’m all about making words and images look good. Samples are available on request.