Erik Jensen (writer)

Erik Jensen is an Australian journalist and author, known for his 2014 biography of artist Adam Cullen, Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen, and as founding editor of The Saturday Paper.

Early life

Jensen went to primary school in Fiji, attending a Methodist school for a while. He said that it was while he was there that he discovered that his parents were "godless", so he prayed for them for about six months before he "left God at about six and a half".^[1]

Career

Jensen started writing for music magazines when he was 15, and The Sydney Morning Herald employed him as a critic when he was 16. After finishing high school, the Herald took him on as a news reporter, a role he was in for five years, until at the age of 23 he became summer editor at the paper.^[2] While he was at the Herald, he won a Walkley Award for Young Print Journalist of the Year in 2010.^[3][1]

In 2008, Archibald Prize-winning artist Adam Cullen asked Jensen to live with him and write his biography. He stayed for about four years, in the role of observer as Cullen dealt in drugs and was arraigned for weapons possession. Jensen was even shot in the leg by Cullen, to prove his commitment to the book. After Cullen's death in 2012, Jensen completed and published his biography, titled Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen.^[4] He later said "...I allowed myself to be in fairly traumatic settings during that book, because I had convinced myself that the professional response was to be absent from them" and that he "[needed] to continue working on the project to properly extricate [himself] from it".^[1]

He had met publisher Morry Schwartz while he was at the Herald and together they decided to launch a Saturday newspaper. Jensen moved to Melbourne in 2013 in order to prepare for publication of the new weekly newspaper. The Saturday Paper was launched in February 2014, as a return to "old fashioned journalism",^[2] and based on Jensen's drive to "reconnect journalism with writing" and away from "just arranging facts from most important to least important".^[1] Jensen remained editor until June 2018, when Vice Media features editor Maddison Connaughton was appointed to the position, when Jensen became editor-in-chief^[5] of Schwartz Media.^[6]He was the paper's representative on the judging panel for the annual Horne Prize since its inception in 2016, being replaced by Connaughton in 2019.^[7]

In 2017, Jensen published an essay, Erik Jensen on Kate Jennings, in the monograph series Writers on Writing, in which he writes about the Australian novelist, poet and feminist Kate Jennings.^[8][9]

Jensen co-wrote the screenplay of the 2019 film Acute Misfortune, with director Thomas M. Wright.^[10] He has also written for television.^[6]

In 2019, he released a Quarterly Essay about that year's federal election, titled The Prosperity Gospel. It was described as a "dazzling report from the campaign trail".^[11]

In 2021, he released a collection of poetry, titled I Said The Sea Was Folded.^[12]

As of June 2023^[update], Jensen continues as editor of The Saturday Paper.^[13]

Awards

As of April 2020^[update], Jensen has won the following awards:^[3]

• 2010: Walkley Award for Young Australian Journalist Award, Print News
• 2015: for Acute Misfortune: The Life and Death of Adam Cullen
  • Winner, "The Nib", CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature, Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize
  • Winner, "The Nib", CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature
  • Shortlisted, Victorian Premier's Literary Awards, Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction
• 2019: for Acute Misfortune (2019 film)
  • Nominated, Film Critics Circle of Australia – Best Screenplay, Original or Adapted^[14]
  • Nominated, AACTA Awards, Best Indie Film

References

1. Jensen, Erik (14 February 2018). "Erik Jensen: Bringing writing back to journalism". The Garret: Writers on Writing (Interview). Interviewed by Brasch, Nic. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
2. Feagins, Lucy (27 February 2014). "The Saturday Paper: Five Questions with Erik Jensen". The Design Files. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
3. "Erik Jensen: Awards". Austlit. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
4. Thompson, Sean (25 November 2015). "Journalists sweep the Nib Awards". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
5. Zoe Samios (15 June 2018). "Vice's Maddison Connaughton named new editor of The Saturday Paper". Mumbrella. News Corp Australia. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
6. "Erik Jensen". Black Inc Books. 11 June 2014. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
7. "The Horne Prize - News". The Horne Prize. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
8. "Erik Jensen on Kate Jennings". Austlit. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
9. Jennings, Erik (2 October 2017). Erik Jensen on Kate Jennings. Writers on Writing. Black Inc. ISBN 9781863959834.
10. "Erik Jensen". Austlit. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
11. "The Prosperity Gospel". Quarterly Essay. 19 December 2018. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
12. I said the sea was folded by Erik Jensen. 6 November 2020.
13. "Erik Jensen". The Saturday Paper. 23 April 2016. Retrieved 25 June 2023.
14. "2019 Awards Winners". Film Critics Association of Australia. Retrieved 25 April 2020.

Further reading

• Dore, Madeleine (28 March 2018). "Extraordinary Routines: Erik Jensen". Kill Your Darlings.
• Edmond, Martin (30 September 2014). "Declivities & eminences: Acute Misfortune: Life and Death of Adam Cullen". Sydney Review of Books.
• Jensen, Erik (6 October 2017). "Erik Jensen on writing On Kate Jennings". Writers Victoria (Interview). Interviewed by Writers Victoria.