12 Facts About Van Badham

Vanessa Badham was born on 1974 and is an Australian writer and activist.

Van Badham is a regular columnist for the Guardian Australia website.

Van Badham's parents worked in the New South Wales gaming and track industry, with her father eventually working as a manager in the registered club industry.

Van Badham studied creative writing and performance at the University of Wollongong, graduating with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Creative Arts degrees.

At university, Badham won the Philip Larkin Poetry Prize in 1997, and the Des Davis Drama Prize and Comedy Prize in 2000.

Van Badham worked with the Student Union as Media Officer and Women's Officer, and sat on the Academic Senate and University Internationalisation Committee.

Van Badham's work was discovered by the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, who staged a collaborative production of Kitchen with Nabokov Theatre in 2001.

Van Badham was appointed literary manager of London's Finborough Theatre in 2009 and worked there until relocating to Melbourne to become an artistic associate at the Malthouse Theatre from 2011 to 2013.

In 2009 it was announced that Van Badham had been signed for a three-book deal by Pan Macmillan Australia.

In 2013 Van Badham began publishing political commentary and arts criticism for the Guardian Australia website.

Van Badham's commentary has appeared in publications The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Irish Times, Der Freitag, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Women's Agenda, Australian Cosmopolitan, and Daily Life.

Van Badham has been a featured speaker at the Wheeler Centre, Festival of Dangerous Ideas, All About Women festival, Melbourne Writers Festival and Australian Council of Trade Unions National Congress.