Doris Brett

Doris Brett (born 1950) is an Australian writer and clinical psychologist. She has written in a number of genres, including poetry, memoir and nonfiction.

Doris Brett
Born1950 (age 72–73)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
OccupationNovelist, poet, nonfiction writer and clinical psychologist
EducationUniversity of New England
University of Melbourne
Alma materVictoria University of Technology

Early life and education

Brett was born in Melbourne in 1950 to Polish Jewish parents.[1] She is the younger sister of writer, Lily Brett.[2] She was educated at Lee Street State School in Carlton where she was inspired by Gerald Murnane who taught her in 4th grade.[1] She took her undergraduate degree at the University of New England, gaining a BA in psychology and English. She completed a MA in psychology at the University of Melbourne (MA) in 1974[3] and qualified as a clinical psychologist.[4] In 2002 she was awarded a PhD by Victoria University of Technology (now Victoria University) for her thesis, "Eating the Underworld: A memoir in three voices".[5]

Career

Alongside working as a psychologist, Brett conducted bread-making workshops to earn money to fund visits to the United States to develop her skills in hypnosis for her clinical practice. Her first published book was Doris Brett's Australian Bread Book.[6]

Brett's first published poem, "Motel", appeared in The Bulletin in 1980.[7] In 1984 she won the inaugural Mary Gilmore Award for a first book of poetry.[2] Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as Poetry Australia, Island, Luna and Overland and in The Age newspaper as well as in the New Oxford Book of Australian Verse.[4]

Brett worked as a psychotherapist in the oncology unit at the Alfred Hospital for eight years prior to her own diagnosis with ovarian cancer in 1994.[1] Following surgery and treatment she recovered but cancer returned in 1996. She found storytelling through writing poetry and prose was a way of making sense of her life. She also draws on her dreams for inspiration.[6]

Brett practices as a clinical psychologist in Melbourne, where she lives with her husband.[6] She has a daughter, Amantha.[1]

Awards

Selected works
  • Doris Brett's Australian bread book (1984) cookery
  • The Truth About Unicorns (1984) poetry
  • Annie's Stories: A special kind of storytelling (1988) nonfiction
  • More Annie Stories (1990 in the US, 1997 in Australia) nonfiction
  • Looking for Unicorns (1992) novel
  • In the Constellation of the Crab (1996) poetry
  • Eating the Underworld (2001) memoir
  • The Sunday Story Club (2019) nonfiction co-written by Kerry Cue

References
  1. Ormonde, Paul (1997), "Moving sideways", Eureka Street, 7 (1): 46–47, ISSN 1036-1758
  2. "Doris Brett". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Archived from the original on 4 May 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2022.
  3. Brett, Doris (1974), Figure height, self acceptance, and the draw-a-person test, retrieved 3 January 2022
  4. Adelaide, Debra (1988). Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide. Pandora. p. 18. ISBN 0-86358-149-8.
  5. Brett, Doris (2002), Eating the Underworld: A memoir in three voices, retrieved 3 January 2022
  6. Bird, Carmel (1997), "Meeting Doris Brett" (PDF), Westerly, 42 (2): 83–85, retrieved 2 January 2022
  7. "Motel", The Bulletin, John Haynes and J.F. Archibald, 101 (5231): 65, 30 September 1980, ISSN 0007-4039
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