I have always loved stories, real or imagined. Stories are at the heart of everything I do.

I’m a writer, performer and funeral celebrant living part time by the beach in Adelaide on Kaurna Country and part time in a small house in the Clare Valley on Njadjuri Country. 

My first published work was a short story for children, 'Antonia's Gift' published in The Puffin New Zealand Storybook. Since then I have published two novels with Wakefield Press; along with short stories, memoir and essays in most of Australia’s major literary journals including one ('The Plumber' ) in The Best Australian Short Stories.   

I will never fully understand why, but in my mid-30s I had a brief flirtation with stand-up comedy, winning a spot in the Grand Final of Triple J’s Raw Comedy Competition in 2007. The Grand Final was held in the Melbourne Town Hall, later broadcast on television and I’ve never had an audience that big since.  

Life being life and filled with life events, I didn’t do a lot of stand-up after that (one of those events being a move to Abu Dhabi where there weren’t many stand-up stages at the time). I did produce my first full-length show during that time, She Isn’t Just Quiet … (She’s Dead) at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe.  

I moved back to Adelaide several years later, where I wrote, performed and produced my first solo show, Pearls. It has elements of stand-up, it’s also a blend of stand-up, storytelling, theatre and poetry. Since then I have written and performed a further five solo monologues: The Forgettory, An Evening With the Vegetarian Librarian, I Made an Adult, Where to From Here and Stitches. Together, the six form a series of stand-alone but interwoven productions.

These shows use events from my life to explore the broader themes of family, identity, memory and grief. (I call them a ‘middle-aged coming of age’). I like to take the audience on a full emotional journey—not only from tears to laughter, but also everything in between. Joy, melancholy, despair and hope. They’re all there.

Each of those shows has debuted at the Adelaide Fringe, then been performed at many venues and festivals in Adelaide and around the state. At the Adelaide Fringe 2025, I performed all six shows in one season winning several awards including the Frank Ford Award, Spirit of the Fringe, a best theatre weekly award, and the Artform Shaker Award. 
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Every year for the past three years in partnership with my Director and friend Maggie McGinty, I have written and performed a very fun, very silly show in Christmas week, Tracy Crisp’s Annual, One-Night Only, World Famous, Live Christmas Letter Reading. It sells out quickly, so this year we’ll be doing two nights. 

In a strange turn of events for anyone who knew me at high school, I also have some visual arts credits. (However, I would definitely stop short of calling myself a visual artist!). I initiated and co-curated, Weird Adelaide, a tribute to Adelaide writer and artist, Barbara Hanrahan; and in 2023 I held a solo show, Pearls (Unstitched) during SALA at the Port Pirie Regional Art Gallery. I remounted Pearls (Unstitched) at the 2024 Adelaide Fringe at Mrs Harris’ Gallery where it was accompanied by several performances of Pearls and won a weekly award. 

I have received several grants from CreateSA, the Adelaide Fringe and many other agencies; been a writer-in-residence for writers centres in both South Australia and Tasmania; and had several fellowship and residency opportunities at Varuna.

I am currently working on a new piece for performance, Tracy Crisp (Is) The Algorithm to be launched at Adelaide Fringe 2026. Also in 2026, I’ll be launching my next book Pearls: Memoir Fragments, based on the six performance scripts.

I have a highly infrequent newsletter, Naive Psychologist: We're All Making Our Own Sense of Things. It's a bit like old-school blogging, but even more sporadic. You can subscribe here.

I also publish a (mostly) weekly newsletter Sunday Night In, a whats-on roundup of theatre and literary events in South Australia. It's the only one of its kind, with no ads, no sponsorship and it's free. Sign up here.


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