Bionotes on contributors
BIO NOTES
ANDREIA ALMEIDA
Andreia Alves de Oliveira is a photographer and researcher in photography and former lawyer. She holds a PhD in Photographic Studies from the University of Westminster in London. She is co-editor of the journal Sophia (Portugal), board member of the journal Membrana (Slovenia), co-convenor of Ph: The Photography Research Network (UK), and collaborator in the University of Lisbon’s Representations of Home (RHOME) project. Previously, she was visiting lecturer at Birmingham City University. Recent shows and publications include the world touring exhibition and homonymous Thames & Hudson publication Civilization: The Way We Live Now. Andreia lives and works in Greece.
DIANA V. ALMEIDA
Diana V. Almeida holds a PhD in American Literature and Culture, from FLUL, where she was Invited Assistant Professor (2007-2020), teaching Contemporary Art, Gender Studies, Literature, and Visual Culture. Her transdisciplinary post-doctoral project (2009-2015) included a creative writing project at Museum Collection Berardo (CCB). Her embodied creative proposal “Writing the Heart” was inspired by this experience, and fuses meditation, literature, and art. Cosmos e Casas [Cosmos and Houses] is her first poetry book, published by Urutau, in December 2021 and now in its 2nd edition.
SÓNIA AIRES LIMA
A PhD student in English and American Studies at the Faculdade de Letras of the University of Lisbon (FLUL) Sónia Aires Lima is researcher at ULICES – the University’s Centre for English Studies. Her work now focuses mainly on British Victorian Culture and Literature. She is equally enthusiastic about the various contexts through which Cultural Memory reflects itself.
JOY AL-SOFI
Joy Al-Sofi is a prize-winning poet who has been published in various anthologies in Hong Kong and the USA. She has recently moved to Portugal.
DOROTHEA BOSHOFF
Dorothea Boshoff grew up in South Africa but spent at least twenty years of her life abroad, working, travelling and studying. She has been lecturing in English Literature at the University of Mpumalanga, South Africa, for the past 4 years.
OLIVIA DAWSON
Originally from London, Olivia Dawson has lived in Portugal for 30 years. She has two pamphlets of poetry published by Maytree Press: Unfolded (2020) and Unbottled (2022). She has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is the Poetry Society Stanza representative for the Lisbon area.
RACHEL FRANKE
Rachael Franke has had the vast privilege of living in multiple countries, a perk of having family on opposite sides of the world. From being raised in the Pacific Northwest of the United States to currently residing in the Swiss capital city of Bern, she is no stranger to the mixed emotions that come with leaving the familiar for the uncertain. She is a PhD Candidate at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland where she is researching portrayals of motherhood in contemporary novels set in the US South. In June 2023, she will lead a talk on imaginary homelands in war narratives titled “Lyrical Reimaginings of a Conflicted Childhood” at the Representations of Home (RHOME) conference in Lisbon, Portugal.
GABRIEL FRANKLIN
Gabriel Franklin is a PhD student in Literature and Social Practices at the Universidade de Brasília (UnB/Brasil), where he currently conducts studies on the state of urgency poetics, which are understood as the relationships established between the angst of present time and cultural and artistic manifestations.
JOSÉ RAMOS MARQUES
Portuguese-born, he moved to Australia at the age of 13, where he became a lawyer, public servant and then a theatre artist. Returned to Portugal in 2006, where he has worked as a translator, English tutor and playback theatre trainer and practitioner. Has written poems throughout his life and, after studying theatre in Australia, wrote a number of plays and film scripts. More recently, he has become interested in autobiographical writing. He has recently published a memoir about his travels through Europe in 1977 (A Restless Traveller: Reflections on my Eurail adventure in 1977, 2023).
THOMAS O´GRADY
Thomas O’Grady is the author of two books of poems, What Really Matters and Delivering the News, both published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in the distinguished Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series. He divides his year between and among the banks of the ST Joe Rivers in South Bend, Indiana, a converted rumrunners bunkhouse in Adamsville, Rhode Island, and the south shore of his native Prince Edward Island (Canada).
KAJA RAKUŠČEK
Kaja Rakušček (1998) graduated from the University of Ljubljana with a degree in English Language and Literature. She is active in the fields of filmmaking, volunteering and poetry.
OLIVIA RANA
Olivia Rana has published two fiction novels and is currently undertaking a PhD in English and Creative Writing at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her thesis will comprise a novel on the experience of a refugee mother, and also a critical study that will analyze the representation of women refugees within contemporary fiction.
JONAKI RAY
Jonaki Ray was trained as a scientist, and is now an independent researcher, poet, and editor. Her work explores the themes of migration, displacement, and inequities in India. She has won numerous awards, and her poetry collection, Firefly Memories, and chapbook, Lessons in Bending, are forthcoming from Copper Coin and Sundress Publications, respectively.
MARIA VALLE RIBEIRO
Maria Valle Ribeiro is a development and humanitarian affairs expert. She was born in Portugal, grew up in Ireland and spent almost 40 years working in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for the UN and NGOs. She now lives in Lisbon and remains keenly interested in pursuing the many issues faced by people in fragile situations, especially migrants and displaced people, through creative ways.
DAVID SAMPSON
David Sampson has been a lawyer in both England and Portugal and a university lecturer. He published and edited the magazine People and Business and the Portuguese Property Review newsletter. He currently looks after the library in the Chabad Jewish Cultural Centre in Cascais.
LESLEY SAUNDERS
Lesley is an English poet and translator. Recent poetry collections are This Thing of Blood & Love (Two Rivers Press, 2022) and, with Rebecca Swainston, Days of Wonder (Hippocrates Press, 2021), a record of the first year of the Covid pandemic. Translations – including the winner of the Stephen Spender award – of Maria Teresa Horta were published as Point of Honour (Two Rivers Press, 2019).
CARLA SOARES
Carla M. Soares is a Portuguese teacher, translator, writer, PHD student and researcher at the University of Lisbon Centre for American Studies, where her work focuses mainly on contemporary science-fiction and fantasy. She is also interested in Art, having completed a post-grad in Art History in the University of Lisbon. She has published six historical and contemporary novels in Portugal, among which O Ano da Dançarina and Gente Feita de Terra.
MARY ST GEORGE
Mary St. George is a mixed media artist whose work focuses on the theme of ‘Abandoned Buildings’. She photographs them, makes videos and creates mixed media artworks using collage, photography and drawing. During this process she creates new landscapes and narratives calling attention to the past, the tension between nature and the built environment and the hope of renewal. She is an American who has lived in Portugal for 43 years.
THE EDITORS
JEAN PAGE
Jean Page is a researcher in the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies. Her research focusses on the thematics of travel, space, memory and place, rhetoric and form in poetry and fiction in other English-speaking, diasporic literatures and cultures. She is a member of the Representations of Home (RHOME) project. She has a Doctorate in English and American Studies, U. Lisbon, (Australian poetry) and a Master of Arts in Australian Literature (U. Sydney).
MARY FOWKE
Mary Fowke has a PhD in English and American Studies and is a researcher at the University of Lisbon’s School of Arts and Humanities. Her thesis explores emplacement in sensorially based language and writing as a response to geographical displacement in memoirs by Lorna Goodison, Michael Ondaatje and Eva Hoffman. She has a Master's in Comparative Literature from the University of Paris, Sorbonne III, and a degree in English from the University of Toronto. She has a private psychotherapy practice in Lisbon in which she works primarily with expatriates.
ZUZANNA ZAREBSKA
Zuzanna Zarebska (PhD, Post-Doc) is a researcher at ULICES/CEAUL in the fields of women and ageing studies. Her research interests include gerontology, literatures and cultures in English, diaspora, feminisms, gender and identity studies. She is a member of RHOME and MEDICAL HUMANITIES projects. She teaches at the Department of English Studies, ULisbon and is the PI of the Women and Ageing: Towards equality, dignity and improvement of life and well-being project.