Emilie Collyer, As If I’m Really There

Forthcoming September 2025

As If I’m Really There builds thematically and artistically on Emilie Collyer’s award-winning debut collection Do You Have Anything Less Domestic? This second collection digs deeply into Collyer’s avid feminine and feminist interest in the place of the body: what it feels like to have one, how bodies are gendered, assessed, analysed and valued, how the body of an artist and a body of creative work is forged. 

‘With a fierce, vulnerable, wayfaring intelligence, Emilie Collyer swerves and weaves through the thickets of bodies, gender, culture and influence like no-one else. As If I’m Really There is a breathtakingly daring and sensitising collection of poems.’ Andy Jackson

‘In this, her follow-up collection to Do You Have Anything Less Domestic?, Collyer extends and deepens the formal and feminist boundaries of her work to impressive effect. This book roams far and wide, moving into the past, nudging the present and winking at the speculative. Pop culture, literary and theatrical works are all present in the heady, febrile swirl of lives examined.’ Thuy On

Emilie Collyer lives on unceded Wurundjeri land, where she writes poetry, plays and prose. Her debut full-length poetry collection Do you have anything less domestic? (Vagabond Press 2022) won the inaugural Five Islands First Book Prize. She has been runner-up in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize (2024) and shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize (2024) and the Judith Wright Poetry Prize (2025). Her poetry and essays are published across a wide range of literary and scholarly journals locally and internationally. Emilie’s plays include Contest, Dream Home and The Good Girl which has had multiple international productions. Her plays have won and been nominated for numerous awards including the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award (London), Queensland Premier’s Drama Award, Green Room Awards, George Fairfax, Patrick White and Malcolm Robertson. Emilie’s play Super was commissioned by Red Stitch Theatre’s INK program and premiered in 2025. She is currently under commission with The Street Theatre, creating a new work The Signal Makers with composer Jess Green. Emilie works as a dramaturg, text consultant and teacher with artists and institutions including VCA, RMIT and Writers Victoria. She has just completed her PhD researching feminist creative practice at RMIT where she is now an Adjunct Industry Fellow.

Emilie Collyer, As If I’m Really There
September 2025. 148mm x 210mm. 96pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-76-5

Cover image: Daisy Noyes, Flying Dress, 2023.
Courtesy of the artist. www.daisynoyes.com

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.