Teri Louise Kelly is an Australian writer and poet whose work is as uncompromising, restless, and fearless as her life. Born in Brighton in the UK and shaped by years spent living across Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, the Caribbean, New Zealand, and Australia, Teri brings a deeply lived, transnational perspective to her writing. Her books move fluidly between memoir, fiction, and poetry, drawing on memory, desire, exile, love, betrayal, and survival, often blurring the line between what is sharply recalled and what is half-forgotten yet emotionally precise. Teri is the author of several striking biographical and semi-autobiographical works, including Sex, Knives & Bouillabaisse, Last Bed on Earth, American Blow Job, and Bent, alongside poetry collections and verse novels that confront sexuality, faith, guilt, and intimacy without apology. Her writing is rooted in personal experience, not as confession for its own sake, but as a way of transforming fragments of life into narrative and voice.
Whether she is writing about loneliness, migration, infidelity, or identity, her work resists comfort and instead invites the reader into complexity. As a transgender writer who transitioned at forty, Teri speaks openly about loss, fear, reinvention, and strength, themes that echo throughout her creative output. She is also a powerful performance poet, known for reading in pubs, on festival stages, and across Australia, insisting that poetry should be lived, heard, and sometimes challenged rather than politely observed. Her work carries an edge that asks audiences to forget labels and listen first to language, rhythm, and truth. This interview offers a chance to explore not only Teri Louise Kelly’s books and poetry, but also her reflections on transgender experience, love, art, and resilience, told with candor, wit, and an unflinching eye for what it means to survive and create on one’s own terms.
Monika: Today it is both a pleasure and an honor to welcome Teri Louise Kelly, an Australian writer and poet, and the author of numerous books, including the biographical works Sex, Knives & Bouillabaisse (2008), Last Bed on Earth (2009), American Blow Job (2010), and Bent (2014). Hello Teri.
Teri: Hi Monika.
Monika: For readers meeting you for the first time, how would you describe who you are, both as a person and as a writer?
Teri: I like to write, garden, and drink, although not necessarily in that order. Writing keeps me sane, gardening keeps me grounded, and drinking occasionally keeps me honest. Together, they probably explain more about me than any formal biography ever could.
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Monika: Your work moves confidently across very different territories, from loneliness in Last Bed on Earth, to immigration in American Blow Job, to violence and war in The Colour of Your Blood. What draws you toward these subjects, and how do they begin to take shape as books?
Teri: Mainly, they are based on my life, just stories, memories, and reminiscence. Sometimes they are clear and other times out of focus, so the theme develops perhaps from a single memory into a mishmash of recollections joined with narrative. I rarely sit down with a plan, as the material tends to reveal itself over time. The process feels more like remembering than inventing.
Monika: When you published Girls Like Me: A Book of Modern Poetry in 2010, your work openly embraced desire, seduction, and sexuality. What was happening in your life at that moment that made you want to write so directly about those themes?
Teri: It was a time in my life when I was surrounded by sex and seduction, and I seemed to fascinate girls, and the poetry reflects that period, one of confusion, conspiracy, and coercion. Everything felt heightened and unstable, and the poems came out of that intensity. I was documenting an emotional atmosphere as much as personal encounters.
Monika: In Shedding Sin: A Verse Novel, you explore love and betrayal through a form that feels almost biblical in tone and rhythm. What led you to choose poetry and religious imagery as the language for such a personal story?
Teri: I had cheated on my partner, and the novel was a two-way conversation between us as we searched for reconciliation. I do not really know how the biblical element crept into it. It may have come from guilt and the need for absolution. Poetry felt like the only form honest enough to hold that tension.
Monika: Looking back at 2011, you released Punktuation and A Double Pass to Aberration, books that stand out even within your body of work. How do you see those books now, with some distance from that period?
Teri: I do not like them. I spent most of 2011 drunk, and I think that drunkenness is reflected in those books. They feel unfocused and chaotic to me now. At the same time, they are honest documents of where I was mentally.
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Monika: Do you believe there is such a thing as distinctly transgender literature or art, or do you see identity as only one element among many in creative work?
Teri: I do not think so. Being transgender means difficulty mixed with a strange fascination. You never quite fit, but because you do not fit, people open other doors for you. That tension can shape the work indirectly. It is less about category and more about perspective.
Monika: You eventually chose to write your autobiography after many years of postponing it. What finally made you feel ready to tell your story in that form?
Teri: Because it was time. I had put it off for years mainly because I could not find a way to write it in an unconventional way. What is the point if you write it like everyone else has? I needed the structure to feel truthful to my life. Otherwise it would have felt pointless.
Monika: When you think about other transgender women reading your work or hearing your story, what do you hope they might take from your experience?
Teri: Strength. Surviving teaches you more than success ever does. If that comes across, then the work has done something worthwhile.
Monika: When did you begin your transition, and what kind of support, if any, did you find among family, friends, or new connections during that time?
Teri: I was forty, and I had to make new friends, and those friends were women, and they helped me enormously. Starting again socially was both frightening and liberating. Those friendships became a form of family for me.
Monika: As you were navigating that period of change, were there any transgender figures, public or private, who influenced or guided you along the way?
Teri: No. I was very much on my own in that sense. That isolation forced me to trust my own instincts.
Monika: Looking back now, what part of coming out was the most difficult for you to endure or process?
Teri: Loss of the past, self-identity, and fear. It felt like grieving someone who no longer existed. At the same time, I was learning how to live as someone new.
Monika: From your perspective today, how would you describe the current situation for transgender women within Australian society?
Teri: Not much. The people I know are supportive, but there is an element of anti-transgender sentiment, which only proves how uneducated some people are. Acceptance often exists in small circles rather than at a wider societal level. That gap remains deeply frustrating.
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Monika: When you look at how transgender lives are portrayed in films, newspapers, and literature, what stands out to you most about the way these stories are usually told?
Teri: Why do they always use a genetic female to play a male-to-female transgender woman? It feels like a refusal to let transgender women represent themselves. That choice reinforces misunderstanding rather than authenticity.
Monika: Transgender issues are often grouped together with those of the wider LGBT community. From your perspective, does this alliance help the transgender community express its own needs and struggles?
Teri: I think so, but then again I do not see the connection between LGB and T. The experiences and political needs are often very different. Sometimes that difference gets lost in the grouping.
Monika: In Australia, do you see any transgender figures whose activism or visibility has had a transformative impact comparable to Harvey Milk’s role in gay rights history?
Teri: Not really, sadly. There is a lack of visible leadership at that scale. That absence leaves a noticeable gap in representation.
Monika: Have you ever been personally involved in politics or lobbying, and do you believe transgender women can realistically influence political systems?
Teri: Well, Georgina Beyer did in New Zealand, but politics and transgender people do not really mix. Politics is a male bastion after all. The structure itself is often hostile to difference. That makes participation especially difficult.
Monika: How central is love in your life, both personally and emotionally?
Teri: Vital, without it I would just be cruising bars or bed-hopping, love is the cornerstone of stability. It gives life shape and direction. Without it, everything feels temporary.
Monika: Finally, what advice would you give to transgender girls who are struggling with gender dysphoria and self-doubt?
Teri: Never give up and never forget who you are, regardless of gender. Identity is deeper than fear or expectation. Holding on to yourself is an act of survival.
Monika: Teri, thank you for the interview.
Links to some of Teri's pages:
amazon.com - Her 2012 film titled "TLK Punk"
goodreads.com - More about her books
© 2015 - Monika Kowalska
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