Sophie Cunningham

Writer, artist, teacher, speaker and advocate

Sophie Cunningham is a non-fiction writer, novelist and teacher of creative writing.She has a passion for trees and broader environmental issues. She received a Dahl Fellowship 2026 from Eucalypt Australia to write ‘Eucalyptus: A Story in Twenty Trees’.

Sophie has a wide range of teaching experience and currently leads a pre-recorded (and written) downloadable Master Class on Writing an Essay Collection for Kill Your Darlings. She will be co-teaching Faber’s How to Write A Novel Melbourne course in 2027. She has written twelve books, as well as editing one and appearing in anthologies. Her most recent novel is This Devastating Fever (Ultimo Press) and her fourth book for children,The Platypus of Christmas Creek - The True Story of a Miracle Rescue (Albert Street Books) has just been published. Her essay collection City of Trees (Text Publishing) was published in 2019. As well as writing about eucalyptus she is working on her next novel,The Whole Earth Catalogue, and collating a second essay collection.

A Member of the Order of Australia for her contributions to literature, Sophie is a director of the Australian Society of Authors and a non-executive director of the Copyright Agency.Sophie was a co-founder of The Stella Prize, former editor of Meanjin (2008 – 2011) and former chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts (2011 – 2014). She has written for a range of newspapers and magazines, and has extensive public speaking experience.

Trees-Stories – see here.

Short CV – download here.

Head shots – download here.

Current appearances - see here.