Australian poet, novelist, and publisher David Musgrave was born in Sydney and earned a PhD at Sydney University. With wryness and precision, Musgrave writes long, formally complex poems that use human relationships, personal and literary history, and observations of the natural world. In the Mascara Literary Review, poet Kylie Rose observed of Musgrave’s book Phantom Limb: “Systems, order and logic underpin Musgrave’s body of work. His is an exquisitely constructed and formulated world, where painful emotional states are discharged by creating movement in the reader’s imagination through language and form.” Musgrave is the author of several poetry collections, including To Thalia (2004), Watermark (2006), and Phantom Limb (2009), as well as the satirical novel Glissando (2010). Musgrave collaborated with his wife, photographer Fiona Robards, on the art book Open Water (2007).
 
Musgrave founded the Australian literary publisher Puncher & Wattmann. His honors include the Sidney Nolan Gallery Poetry Prize, the Broadway Poetry Prize, the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize, the Alec Bolton Prize, the Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize, and the Newcastle Poetry Prize. He lives in Sydney.