About Clementine
Clementine began her career working out of a dank and lonely basement office at the University of Adelaide. As a minion of the editorial overlords at On Dit Newspaper (one of Australia’s oldest student rags) Clementine clawed her way up the ranks to join the illustrious history of those others who have experienced a perpetual state of monitor tan and lived to tell the tale.
Following this brief period of alcoholic insanity, Clementine began writing a weekly column for the Sunday Mail in which she both outraged and amused the residents of Adelaide and occasionally the rest of the world. For example, after writing a frank and honest personal account of abortion, Clementine was assured the citizens of Rome was praying for her. Which was a nice gesture, but probably a bit of a waste of time what with all those gelato cones they have to eat and handsome men they have to gaze at.
Recently, Clementine has been working as a radio broadcaster. In addition to presenting programs on Adelaide’s premier talkback station 5AA, she has also co-presented the Fakefasters on Melbourne’s 3RRR. Clementine is frequently invited as a guest on Adelaide’s ABC 891. Her favourite moment in radio came when a listener called her a c**t for not playing the news on time.
As a public speaker, Clementine has been invited to speak at events including SA’s Walk Against Warming, Adelaide Writers’ Week, ACMI’s Live In The Studio sessions and Melbourne Fringe’s Everybody’s Talkin.
With musical collaborator Emily Davis, Clementine has produced and presented three cabaret shows at the Adelaide Fringe. This has, among other things, seen her perform the interpretative dance to Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’; play an entire song unaware that her bass wasn’t plugged in until someone in the audience walked up and did it for her, and; strip down to her underwear on more than one occasion ‘for the laughs’. Next year, Clementine will perform in a solo show titled All The Boys I’ve Ever Loved Have Found It In Their Hearts To Forgive Me.
In 1998, Clementine declared that she believed in women’s rights but not the nasty, manhating ideology of feminism. In 2008, she received the Barbara Polkinghorne Award for Excellence in Feminist Writing at SA’s International Women’s Day Luncheon. In 2010, she published an article on The Drum disputing the idea that feminism had failed and was later invited to argue the same point in CLEO Magazine. Clementine considers this and all the intervening experiences to be a Good Sign.
Clementine is listed here on No Chicks, No Excuse, a website promoting Australia’s excellent female speakers, writers and panellists. Please give her a job and/or some kind of paid work as she is now 30 years old, and her father no longer finds it cute when she asks him for money.
You can follow Clementine on Twitter on @clementine_ford.
You can email Clementine on clementine DOT ford AT gmail DOT com.
