Astrid Edwards

Education Consultant, Social Issues, Storyteller

Astrid is a bibliophile. She is the host of The Garret: Writers on Writing and has interviewed more than 200 of Australia’s most prominent writers. In 2023 she began a PhD at the University of Melbourne exploring potential and perceived barriers to publishing and selling climate fiction in Australia.

She regularly moderates and participates in panels at literary festivals, and you can read her book reviews in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Future Women, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue, Australian Book Review and Australian Foreign Affairs.

She is one half of Bad Producer Productions, an independent podcast network specialising in arts and sport (she represents the Arts part). Astrid also teaches in the Associate Degree of Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT University and sometimes judges literary prizes.

Astrid is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She served on the Victorian Disability Advisory Council advising the Minister for Disability, Ageing and Carers (2019 to 2022). She the former Chair of Melbourne Writers Festival (2019-2022) and the former Deputy Chair of Writers Victoria (2014-2018).

In 2021 Astrid contributed to the anthology Growing Up Disabled in Australia and made her debut appearance on Q+A in 2021. She previously received grants from the Australia Council for the Arts (2017 and 2018) and The Copyright Agency (2017 and 2019).

Before embarking on this creative storytelling career, Astrid was an economics and policy consultant for almost a decade. She specialised in climate and social policy, and to this day she is trying to figure out how stories can help to save the planet.

Astrid is a member of Mensa Australia.

Where were you born?

I was born in Sydney and moved to Melbourne when I was 30. I know all about the rivalry between the two cities, but I now consider both home. I have close family in both cities, as well as in London in the UK and Phoenix and St Louis in the USA.

What other jobs have you had?

I have done some odd things. I’ve taught Classical Latin at a private girls high school, represented the Australian Government at the United Nations in New York, and worked for a private intelligence agency. But one of my favourite jobs has to be my first real job – I was a bookseller, and few things have topped that.

What themes are recurring in your work?

Words matter, and so do the stories we tell ourselves.

What have been the highlights of your career?

Richard Fidler – one of Australia’s best interviewers and well-known radio hosts – praising my interview style and agreeing to be interviewed by me three times!

Where have your works been published?

My book reviews are published in The Age/Sydney Morning Herald, Future Women, Kill Your Darlings, Australian Foreign Affairs and Australian Book Review. I am also a contributor to Growing Up Disabled in Australia (2021) edited by Carly Findlay.

What are you passionate about?

Reading, writing and storytelling. The climate crisis. Social justice.

Haven’t I seen you before?

Maybe – I’ve done a few TV and radio spots for literary and disability advocacy. More likely though, you’ve heard my voice on either The Garret: Writers on Writing or Anonymous Was A Woman, or possibly even my guest spot on The Guilty Feminist.

Anything else you’d like to share with us?

Reading is the key to everything for me, and honestly, one day I’d like to spend my days doing only that.