Clare Mendes is an Australian writer. She was born in Melbourne in 1967, and currently lives, works and plays in this beautiful city.

Clare’s novels include Drift Street, The Curtain Raiser, A Race Across Burning Soil (HarperCollins) and The Unvoiced Consonant (Little Owl Press). Her radio plays have been produced by ABC Radio National. The Agreement, her first full-length stage play, was performed at La Mama Courthouse in October 2015 and her play Trash Goes Down The River was performed at Bluestone Church Arts Space in June 2017. Her latest play A Flower for Moses was presented at Gasworks Arts Park in May 2021. Clare has also written a number of short plays and monologues. She recently completed a new full-length play, ‘Skating in the Clouds’.

As a producer, Clare has produced MWT’s annual Season of New Work since 2015. with recent theatrical seasons including The Melbourne Monologues, Six Degrees in Melbourne and Stark. Dark. Albert Park (2018), Beachside Stories and Daring Dog Monologues (2019), and the double-bill season The Metropolis Monologues & The City Park Plays, presented at The MC Showroom from 17 – 22 December 2020. She is also the creator and producer of The Best, The Fairest, The First, which was presented in association with Gasworks Arts Park from 3rd – 6th March 2021. 

Clare began her career as an advertising copywriter before working as a storyliner and scriptwriter for the TV soap “Neighbours”. She was Executive Director of the Fellowship of Australian Writers for over a decade, during which time she also oversaw the administration of FAW’s National Literary Awards. Clare has travelled extensively and has lived and worked in the US, South-East Asia and Latin America. She has a Cambridge teaching qualification which has taken her on language assignments around the world. She loves Jakarta, Hanoi, and especially Trujillo, Perú, but her favourite neighbourhood will always be Park Slope in Brooklyn, where she once lived in an illegal basement apartment that was kept warm by a maze of overhead pipes.

Clare graduated from The University of Melbourne with an Honours degree in Literature and is an Award School graduate. She is the recipient of an Angus & Robertson Fiction Prize, an Asialink Award, an Ian Reed mentorship, a Varuna residency, a Playworks Script Award and a Creative Victoria grant.

Clare is also the Company Manager of Melbourne Writers’ Theatre, and also produces this company’s rich and diverse theatrical seasons. To learn more about MWT, visit melbournewriterstheatre.org.au