My writing has appeared on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald and as a two-page spread in Spectrum, in literary journals such as Australian Book Review, TEXT and Perilous Adventures and in national magazines such as Australian Ageing Agenda and Outback. In 2010, I was shortlisted for The Calibre Prize, Australia’s premier essay competition. From 2017 to 2021, I was the sole journalist and defacto editor of the Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun. At the Armidale Express from 2009 to 2012, I went from first year journalist to acting editor. I have taught creative writing, academic writing and public speaking, and have years of experience as an academic editor. I have written two research theses, both available as books (A Hospital Bed at Home: Family stories of caregiving from diagnosis to death and Brochureware and Beyond: Case studies of consultant-developed small business web sites); I have published scholarly articles and conference papers, and have worked as a research assistant on long-running ALTC and ARC projects.
Education
Bachelor of Arts, Sydney University, 1985
Master of Economics, University of New England, 2005
PhD, CQUniversity, 2011
Employment History
September 2020 – current
Research associate at the University of Newcastle, working with Professor Rhonda Wilson on projects related to the use of digital therapeutics in mental health and wellbeing, including an international research collaboration on menopause in the workplace.
July 2017 – March 2021
As the sole journalist at the Bellingen Shire Courier-Sun, I wrote, photographed and edited content for the weekly paper and laid out pages for print using NewsNow. I published stories to the website daily and posted links on social media. I also contributed stories to ACM’s regional quarterly magazine Mid North Coast Now.
January 2014 – July 2017
As a ‘freelance’ academic I had a wide range of researching, writing and editing jobs:
- Research assistant for an ARC-funded Bilingualism in the Bush project;
- Online teaching, marking and unit coordination for the University of New England’s Speaking in Public unit, THEA134/234;
- Researching how sustainability is taught in secondary schools around the world, particularly in terms of classroom practices and action focused policy;
- Writing a business story for Outback magazine about a wedding planner who lives in the middle of nowhere, and a profile story in the Great Australians magazine about a woman whose life’s work is family farm succession planning;
- Editing a PhD about miners’ sustainability reporting online; a PhD about Nurse Practitioners; a PhD about learning Japanese kanji; a MSc on health policy for Indigenous people in Canada, Australia and New Zealand; an MA about learning Welsh; an engineering research dissertation about repairing concrete structures; a journal article about family business; a music PhD about an avant garde composer; a medical PhD about assessing cardiovascular risk and a public health PhD about recruiting and retaining doctors in regional centres;
- Reviewing and editing University of New England School of Arts online unit materials (images) to ensure copyright compliance and helping to test an upgrade to the university’s Moodle system;
- Writing the background, policy context and issues sections of a research and strategy document on LGBTI ageing for the AIDS Council of NSW;
- Marking assignments for University of New England unit ENCO100 The Craft of Academic Writing;
- Formatting, copyediting and proofreading an academic book about sustainability in the primary science curriculum (according to the requirements of Sense Publishers);
- Applying for national and state grants to support work on a book project about New England writers.
December 2012 – December 2014
Freelance writing for newspapers and magazines; editing PhD and Master’s theses on Arts, Health and Business topics; and casual academic work at several Australian universities. At the University of Canberra, I worked as a research assistant for the Faculty of Health on projects such as The National Evaluation of the Nurse Practitioner – Aged Care Models of Practice Program (writing sections of the formative report, and editing and proofreading the whole report) and for the Cooperative of Healthy Ageing Research and Teaching (editing a booklet of conference abstracts and compiling an annotated bibliography of literature on Teaching Nursing Homes). At the University of New England, I presented tutorials for HSNS122 Cultural Competence in Australian Nursing Practice; conducted two-hour workshops and marked assignments for ENCO100 The Craft of Academic Writing; and did marking for ENCO329/529 Publishing and Editing. I was also a casual research assistant (specialist workshop facilitator and writing mentor) for a CQUniversity project encouraging overseas students to write about their experiences of studying in Australia.
May 2012 – November 2012
Acting editor and senior journalist at the Armidale Express, researching and writing stories, doing sub-editing and layout, updating the website, and mentoring younger journalists. From July-September I was the acting editor leading a team of six to produce four newspapers a week and the quarterly gloss magazine, Seasons.
June 2009 – May 2012
Working part-time as a journalist at the Armidale Express, I also published freelance pieces in national newspapers and journals including a front page story for the Sydney Morning Herald , a two-page interview feature commissioned by the Herald’s literary editor, and a 6000 word article shortlisted for Australia’s premier essay prize and published in Australian Book Review. In May, 2010, I was the writer-in-residence and workshop presenter for a three-day writing retreat held on North Keppel Island, Queensland, Memory and Memoir: Writing your Life.
July 2011 – April 2012
Research assistant for Associate Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, School of Humanities, UNE, working two days a week conducting literature reviews and interviews for an ARC-funded Meals on Wheels project, and drafting a journal article about the challenges facing this iconic volunteer organisation. This article has now been published in Voluntas
2007-2010 PhD candidate with an Australian Postgraduate Award scholarship, writing a narrative non-fiction book manuscript about people’s experiences of caring for a terminally-ill family member at home, plus a dissertation contextualising the project and exploring its ethical dimensions. I conducted multiple, in-depth, qualitative interviews with former carers, defining my project as a biographical type of life writing within the field of narrative inquiry. As a doctoral student, I presented papers at six conferences; had three refereed journal articles and three refereed conference papers published; had a memoir piece included in an anthology; saw a chapter of my creative work shortlisted for the Calibre Prize and published in a literary journal; and refereed journal articles and conference papers in the discipline of writing.
2005-2012 Fixed term contracts as a research assistant at the University of New England, CQUniversity and the University of Canberra. From 2007 to 2010, I worked on ALTC-funded projects led by Professor Jen Webb from the University of Canberra and Professor Donna Brien from CQUniversity. I was responsible for conducting literature reviews, creating annotated bibliographies and collecting data about Australian universities’ policies and examination guidelines for creative research higher degrees. Subsequently, I was the lead author and conference presenter for a refereed paper based on this research. Also, I was employed as a casual associate lecturer at UNE, marking assignments for ENCO329/529 Publishing and Editing, ENCO100 Communication Skills – Composition, and conducting tutorials and marking units in Research Methods, Organisational Behaviour and Small Business Management.
2000-2004 Master of Economics (UNE) by research and coursework, receiving high distinctions for units in small business management, e-business strategy, organisational change, information systems management and research methods. My 50,000 word dissertation, ‘Brochureware and Beyond: Case studies of formation processes and roles in consultant-developed small business web sites’, which used interpretive case studies to examine how effectively small businesses work with consultants to develop an internet strategy, was awarded the grade of High Distinction by two external examiners and won the DH Drummond Memorial Dissertation Prize and the NP Cameron MEc Prize.
2000 onwards Co-director and office manager of Hutchinson Software Pty Ltd, an IT consultancy with a national client base.
1991-1999 I was employed as a Senior Information Technology Officer (HEO 8) at the University of New England. During these nine years I filled the following positions: Novell Netware Server administrator (1991-1994), Oracle Database administrator (1992-1999), Project Manager for a major upgrade of the University’s administrative systems (Jan 1996-Oct 1996), and acting Manager of the Information Systems Group (Oct 1996-Oct 1997).
1986-1990 Computing support positions with IBM Australia; Security Pacific Australia; and the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority.
Janene Carey 