Van Badham

Vanessa "Van" Badham (born 1978) is an Australian writer and social commentator. A playwright and novelist, she writes dramas and comedies. She is a regular columnist for Guardian Australia.

Badham was born in Sydney in 1978. Her parents worked in the New South Wales gaming and track industry, with her father eventually working as a manager in the registered club industry. The influence of her upbringing was evident in work presented to her teachers at school; Badham's first script was a second grade assignment to write up the class Nativity Play, which she set in the beer garden of a public house with Mary and Joseph ejected by a manager for failing to meet dress regulations.

She studied creative writing and performance at the University of Wollongong, graduating with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Creative Arts (Honours) degrees. At university, Badham won the Philip Larkin Poetry Prize in 1997, and the Des Davis Drama Prize and Comedy Prize in 2000. In 2001, she went on exchange to the University of Sheffield to study English literature.

While a student she began to publish poetry and short fiction as well as write student dramas. At university, she was drawn into involvement with student politics and left-wing activism, and she was elected editor of the Wollongong University Student Representative Council newspaper, Tertangala. She worked with the Student Union as Media Officer and Women's Officer, and sat on the Academic Senate and University Internationalisation Committee. By 1998, Badham was an avowed anarchist and Small and Regional Campuses Officer and then President of the New South Wales branch of the National Union of Students, caucusing with radical group Non Aligned Left. In 2013, she completed a Master of Arts degree with First Class Honours in Theatre at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne.

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