Helen Hopcroft

Helen Hopcroft is an artist, writer, performer and theatre producer based in Maitland, Australia. She holds a Royal College of Art MA degree (Painting) and a Creative Writing PhD from Newcastle University (NSW).

Helen has written two non-fiction books for the University of Newcastle and Hunter Valley Grammar School, with her publication list including The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Art Monthly and The Griffith Review. She recently received NSW Writers Centre’s Access for Regional Writers grant for a Writing NSW playwrighting course. Helen has been shortlisted for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival/Spineless Wonders joanne burns Microlit Award, and for the 2022 Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing. Her publication list includes The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Art Monthly and The Griffith Review. She occasionally writes reviews for ArtsHub.com

Helen’s erotic novella, The Nights, is published by Spineless Wonders as an audio book narrated by London-based actor Kelly Burke, with a hard copy illustrated version set to be launched at the 2024 Newcastle Writers Festival. As a feminist mediation on sex, animals and female creativity inspired by the 1001 Nights, The Nights retells the famous frame story of The 1001 Nights from Scheherazade’s perspective.

Helen enjoys writing for performance and producing original theatre. Her recent productions include The Rise and Fall of the Fairy Queen (2023 Dobell Festival); Score (2023 Sydney Fringe); Voyage – a New Kind of Storytelling (2023 Newcastle Writers Festival); Strange Men (2023 Newcastle Fringe); Feast (2023 Maitland Indie Festival); Nashville: a Rock Odyssey (2022 Newcastle Fringe; 2022 St Kilda Writers Festival; 2022 Dobell Festival; 2022 Phoenix Theatre, Wollongong); and Strange Men (2022 Newcastle Fringe). Lou Chapman, a Newcastle-based actor, is performing a monologue written by Helen in the Global Finals of the 2023 World Monologue Games.

Helen spent a year (2017-2018) dressed as Marie Antoinette for a piece of performance art titled My Year as a Fairy Tale. She is currently writing a memoir about the experience.