David Stavanger

David Stavanger is a poet, producer, parent, and former psychologist living on Wodi Wodi Dharawal land. He also spends most of his week as an Artistic Director at Red Room Poetry. David is the author of The Special (UQP), awarded the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize; and Case Notes (UWAP), which won the 2021 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry. He is the co-editor of SOLID AIR: Collected Australian & New Zealand Spoken Word (UQP, 2019) and Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health (2022). David's new collection is The Drop Off (Upswell Publishing, 2025), which explores the liminal space of shared custody and societal tropes of the ‘broken family’.