Richard James Allen (born 1960) is a contemporary Australian poet, dancer, actor and filmmaker. The former artistic director of the Poets Union Inc, and founding director of the Australian Poetry Festival, Allen was co-artistic director with Karen Pearlman of That Was Fast (New York City) and Tasdance (Launceston), and now at The Physical TV Company (Sydney).[1]
Allen has published thirteen books of poetry, fiction or performance texts, most recently Text Messages from the Universe (2023), More Lies (2021), The short story of you and I (2019), Fixing the Broken Nightingale (2014), The Kamikaze Mind (2006), and Performing the Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Performance Texts (1999), co-edited with Karen Pearlman. He received the 2005 University of Technology, Sydney, Chancellor's Award for Best Doctoral Thesis. A multi-award-winning film adaptation of his Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry-nominated book, Thursday's Fictions (1999), was first broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2007. This surreal dance fantasy also has a Second Life presence, Thursday's Fictions in Second Life.[citation needed]
Allen, Richard James (c. 2023). Text Messages from the Universe. ASM: Macau & Cerberus Press: Markwell, N.S.W., Australia: Flying Island Books. ISBN978-0-6455503-1-3.
with Karen Pearlman (c. 1999). Performing the Unnameable: An Anthology of Australian Performance Texts. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia: Currency Press in association with RealTime. ISBN0-86819-420-4.
— (c. 1995). The air dolphin brigade. Brooklyn, N.S.W., Australia, and Launceston, TAS, Australia: Paper Bark Press in association with Tasdance. ISBN0-646-26678-0.
— (c. 1995). What to name your baby. Brooklyn, N.S.W., Australia, and Launceston, TAS, Australia: Paper Bark Press in association with Tasdance. ISBN0-646-23747-0.
— (c. 1993). Hope for a man named Jimmie; &, Grand illusion Joe. Wollongong, N.S.W., Australia: Five Islands Press Associates. ISBN1-875604-07-3.
— (c. 1989). To the ocean; &, Scheherazade. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia: Hale & Iremonger. ISBN0-86806-396-7.
— (c. 1986). The way out at last & other poems. Sydney, N.S.W., Australia: Hale & Iremonger. ISBN0-86806-248-0.