Fiona McGregor is a Sydney author and performance artist. She writes novels, essays, short stories and critiques, and is a regular reviewer of performance for RealTime. Since 1993, she has published 5 books.
The latest, Indelible Ink, was published by Scribe in 2010 to a broad and enthusiastic readership. Set in contemporary Sydney, this novel is a family saga; it is the story of how a woman loses it, then finds it, but can’t take it with her; it is a homage to place, a love/hate song to Sydney, and a savage indictment of middle-class conservatism and Australian affluenza. Indelible Ink won Age Book of the Year in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Indie Book awards, the Barbara Jefferis Award, and the WA Premiers Awards. It will be published in the UK by Atlantic in June 2012.
McGregor’s travel memoir Strange Museums was published to critical acclaim in 2008. Links to reviews can be found on this website. All her previous books – two novels and a book of short stories – won or were shortlisted for prizes, including the Steele Rudd Award for best book of short stories awarded to Suck My Toes.
For around fifteen years McGregor has also been making performance art. Beginning in collaboration at party and burlesque events, she has been working solo since 2007, creating work in galleries, at festivals, as interventions, and in nature. Her performance is currently endurance based, using both video and live actions. Vertigo at MOP in February 2011 marked the Australian debut of Water Series, which culminated in a major show at Artspace from 1-20 November of the same year.
You Have the Body, a meditation on unlawful detention, toured in 2008-09, and was acclaimed in the four Australian cities in which it was presented, including being voted Show of the Year by theatre critic James Waites. In June 2009, it was produced by UK performance artist Michael Mayhew at ART Studio, Manchester, UK.