Elisabeth Holdsworth is an essayist, poet, and writer of short stories and reviews, and has been published in Best Australian Essays, Heat, Southerly, Island, The Monthly, Mattoid and Transnational. She won the inaugural ABR/Calibre prize for her essay An die Nachgeborenen: For Those Who Come After, which was published in the February 2007 issue of Australian Book Review and later broadcast on ABC radio.
Born in the Netherlands just after WWII in the south-western province of Zeeland, Elisabeth's family name is de Rijke-Nassau, one of the branches of the Nassaus sharing the common ancestry of Charlemagne and Willem and Juliana de Rijke. The de Rijkes, and their identification as part of the fabric of Middelburg and the island of Walcheren, can be traced back to the thirteenth century.
Elisabeth came to Australia with her parents in 1959. She was educated at MacRobertson Girls' High School (Melbourne), Monash University and the University of Melbourne. She had a long career in the Department of Defence. Apart from her writing, she is involved in arts patronage and is an active collector. She lives with her husband in Goulburn, NSW.
Born in the Netherlands just after WWII in the south-western province of Zeeland, Elisabeth's family name is de Rijke-Nassau, one of the branches of the Nassaus sharing the common ancestry of Charlemagne and Willem and Juliana de Rijke. The de Rijkes, and their identification as part of the fabric of Middelburg and the island of Walcheren, can be traced back to the thirteenth century.
Elisabeth came to Australia with her parents in 1959. She was educated at MacRobertson Girls' High School (Melbourne), Monash University and the University of Melbourne. She had a long career in the Department of Defence. Apart from her writing, she is involved in arts patronage and is an active collector. She lives with her husband in Goulburn, NSW.