About
Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia.
Her short stories and poems explore ideas about womanhood, love, yearning, trauma and travel and death. They employ metaphor, images from Ancient Greek mythology and move through imagination to reality and back. The poems are often written in the first person which gives them a personal and engaging tone though most are not biographical and are instead mosaics of observance and fiction.
The author's writing has been influenced by her experiences as a lawyer. Having acted as a solicitor-advocate for young children involved in child protection applications, to advocating for people involved in criminal law, family law, institutional abuse and family violence matters, she also seeks to give a voice through her writing to people suffering from family violence, relationship breakdown and addiction.
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She has been published in Antipodes Periodical (various years), Inscape (1997), UK Anthology VSS365- Volume One: A Series of Stunning Very Short Stories From Around the World (2019).
Her first book Tears in My Bread (Australian Scholarly Publishing) was published in 2020.
This poetry collection was shortlisted for the prestigious international Eyelands Book Award in November 2021.
It was awarded the Prize in the published manuscript category of the Awards in late 2021.
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Her second book, The Fading Garden, was published in October 2021 and is available online both through international and Australian bookstores. It was shortlisted in the published poetry category of the International Eyelands Awards in 2022. Half of all royalties from this book will be donated to the Australian Conservation Foundation.
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The Fading Garden
October, 2021
The Fading Garden is a lament for the state of the environment, as well as an examination of the lure of escape, the weight of circumstance and the longing for home.
Love, cultural inheritance, family and life in the Australian suburbs are viewed through a lens that is cynical as it is sympathetic.
Many of the poems reference Melbourne landmarks and suburbs. It was shortlisted in the published poetry category of the international Eyelands Awards in 2022.​
Poetry:
Tears In My Bread (Australian Scholarly Publishing 2020)
October 2020
Tears In My Bread was the author’s first collection of poetry, published by Australian Scholarly Publishing in 2020. It grappled with a wide range of themes including womanhood, love, travel, illness and the burden and joy of inheritance.
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The book was shortlisted in November 2021 for the international Eyelands Awards, and was the only Australian book represented on the shortlist.
It won the Award for best published manuscript in the poetry division.
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"The poems expressed a range of emotions through understatement and evocative imagery. The reader is taken on a journey through family life, the body, illness, migration to Australia, and visits to Greece. The poems have an elegiac tone, conveying life's struggles and losses, while at the same time affirming poetry's transformative power”.
- Tom Petsinis
Author of the French Mathematician
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"The poems achieve a luminous simplicity that is both the result of the
experiences considered as well as of a mastery of language that is trimmed of excess and hyperbole..."
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Review of Tears in my Bread in Quadrant Magazine, January-February 2022
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Poetry
Awards and Published Articles
1997-Published in Inscape: Volume Four: Commended
"The Pomegranate Tree" awarded at Melbourne Writer's Festival by David Williamson
2001- First Prize
Greek Australian Cultural League Literary Competition "The Raft"
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2002- Commended
City of Glen Eira Literary Awards "Asylum" judged by poet Aileen Kelly
First Prize
Greek Australian Cultural League Literary Competition "The Cell"
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First Prize
Greek Australian Cultural League Literary Competition "Kyrenia Cyprus 1997"
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2015- Merit
Greek Australian Cultural League Literary Competition "The Silent Gaze"
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2021-Prize
International Eyelands Book Awards "Tears in My Bread" Judged by Gail Sidonie Sobat
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2021 Antipodes Magazine Issue 67- "David Krasnostein- Resilient Spirit: Greek Life during the Lost Decade" book review by Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi
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2021 Antipodes Magazine Issue 67- "Half the Perfect World: Writers, Dreamers and Drifters on Hydra 1955-1964" book review by Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi
2022 Antipodes Magazine Issue 68-
"Athens 1922"
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2022-Finalist
International Eyelands Awards “The Fading Garden” Judged by Alicia Hokanson
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2023 Antipodes Magazine Issue 69-“Arnold Zable” Article on writer Arnold Zable, author of “Café Scheherazade”
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Issue 69- “Gavin Betts- Doyen of the Greek Language- Ancient, Medieval and Modern”
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Media
Check out a sample of recent articles, interviews and profiles below. For media inquiries, please get in touch.
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Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi Exhibits Photography and Painting at recent art exhibition honouring the centenary since the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi was honoured to exhibit some of her photography and a painting at the recent "Lost Homelands" art exhibition at the Steps Gallery in Carlton in November 2022. The article in Neos Kosmos reviews some of the art.
Year of Hopes and Dreams Law Institute Journal 2021
Law Institute Journal April 2021
Poet Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi on panel of judges
Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi was part of a panel of judges who were tasked with selecting the very best in poetry and short stories for the 2022 GACL Literary Competition.
Neos Kosmos
Maria Papageorgiou Foroudi officially launched the Antipodean Palette Art Trail for 2022. Stunning artwork from local artists adorned the streets of Brunswick.
Quadrant (Australia)
Review of 'Tears in My Bread' by academic and poet Ivan Head in Quadrant
