Michael Leach
Michael Leach lives and works on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country in his birthplace of Bendigo. He is a senior lecturer at the Monash University School of Rural Health and co-leader of the Australian & New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) Health Humanities Hot Topic Action Group (HTAG). Michael’s poetry primarily focuses on health: human, animal and planetary health. Michael’s poems have appeared in journals such as Cordite Poetry Review, anthologies such as The Best Australian Science Writing 2024 (NewSouth Publishing, 2024), and his three poetry books: the chapbook Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020), a full-length collection titled Natural Philosophies (Recent Work Press, 2022), and a collection of haiku and senryu titled Rural Ecologies (In Case of Emergency Press, 2024). A second full-length collection, Chords in the Soundscapes, is forthcoming from Ginninderra Press. Over the years, Michael has participated in various literary events, conferences and festivals. After performing his own poetry at Bendigo Writers Festival in 2018 and 2021, Michael hosted poet Andy Jackson’s ‘Human Sounding’ session at Bendigo Writers Festival 2022. Michael’s poems have been recognised in competitions: first place in the UniSA Mental Health and Wellbeing Poetry Competition 2015, commended in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine 2021, joint first place in the poetry category of the Minds Shine Bright Confidence Writing Competition 2022, longlisted in the poetry category of the Minds Shine Bright Confidence Writing Competition 2023, shortlisted in the poetry category of the Woollahra Digital Literary Award 2023, highly commended and longlisted in the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize 2024, longlisted in the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize 2024, and highly commended in the Hush Foundation Kindness in Healthcare Writing Prize 2024.
