Lyn Hatherly 1945–2016
Lyn Hatherly was a poet, classical scholar, editor, publisher, administrator, university lecturer, teacher and mentor of poets and writers.After a varied career, in 1984, at the age of thirty-nine Lyn began an Arts degree at Monash and by the year’s end she joined a poetry workshop run by academic and editor, John Leonard, deepening her love of poetry and writing. By 1986 Lyn was editor of Poetry Monash. By 1993, she was editor of the Medal Poets series and in the following year she completed her own poetry collection, Songs of Silence. Lyn completed her PhD in Classics in 1994. In 1995, Lyn moved to Cairns to take up a lectureship at James Cook University, where she was greatly admired by students for her inspiring and joyful methods of teaching. After the contract with JCU ended, Lyn initiated ‘The Writing Zone’, a web based service for teaching, editing and assessing writing.In 2004, Lyn became a founding board member of Poetry Australia. In 2006, her collection, Acts of Abrasion was published by Five Islands Press under the editorship of Ron Pretty. From 2007 to 2016, Lyn worked voluntarily publishing books of poetry as part of a changing group of editors at Five Islands Press. Lyn was inspired by her love of poetry to continue in the spirit of Ron Pretty, publishing the kind of poetry she admired and found exciting. Lyn held the Press together for most of these years with her hard work and technical knowledge.Many, and One is the book Lyn was working on before she became ill. The collection was finished as her energy waned, and the book itself is a radiant series of poems hard won and brilliantly achieved.