Collection: Sue Woolfe

Sue Woolfe is an acclaimed Australian novelist, short-story writer and essayist whose work has been published internationally and recognised with major literary awards.

She is the author of five novels, including Painted Woman, runner-up for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and Leaning Towards Infinity, winner of the Christina Stead Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the region. Leaning Towards Infinity was a long-running bestseller in Australia and the UK and has been widely published in translation across Europe and the United States. Her later novels include The Secret Cure and The Oldest Song in the World, the latter informed by the 18 months she lived in a remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community. Her short-story collection Do You Love Me or What? was runner-up for the NSW Women Writers’ Prize.

Sue Woolfe has adapted several of her works for the professional stage in Australia and New York, for ABC Radio (winning a prize for best adaptation), and as a libretto for an opera currently in development.

Her non-fiction includes Making Stories (with Kate Grenville), a widely cited examination of how Australian novels are written, and The Mystery of the Cleaning Lady, which explores creativity through neuroscience. She continues to publish research on the brain and creativity, most recently with Routledge in 2024. She also hosts a long-running monthly online Creativity Bar for creatives across disciplines.