Helen Razer
Helen Razer | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1968 Melbourne, Australia |
| Occupation(s) | Writer, radio personality |
| Years active | 1990–present |
| Known for | Broadcasting on Triple J, writing for The Age, The Big Issue, The Saturday Paper |
Helen Razer is a writer and radio personality originally from Melbourne and raised in Canberra. She has published four non-fiction titles and regularly writes columns for the Australian edition of The Big Issue, the Melbourne daily The Age, the monthly publication Cherrie, and the weekly newspaper The Saturday Paper.
Early life
Razer completed her secondary education at Weston Creek High School (currently Stromlo High School) between 1981 and 1984, then proceeded to attend Narrabundah College.
Media work
Between 1990 and 1998, Razer was a broadcaster on the national youth radio station Triple J, where she co-hosted the breakfast show alongside comedian Mikey Robins and featured on the afternoon segment Ladies Lounge with Judith Lucy. She resigned after a stalker gained unauthorized access to the studio.
In 1999, ABC TV’s program Media Watch criticized her for an excessive use of complicated vocabulary. She briefly served as a programmer at Joy FM, Melbourne’s community radio station for the LGBTQ+ community, in 2002.
From 2005 until 2008, Razer hosted the Sunday arts show on 774 ABC Melbourne. Her exit followed public controversy stemming from an interview with actor Steven Berkoff, which received negative attention on ABC TV’s Media Watch for its tone.
Her writing portfolio includes feature pieces and reviews for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. She has been a regular contributor to the news website Crikey and wrote opinion columns for The Australian. Additionally, she penned a column for The Big Issue and maintained the blog "Bad Hostess" until the mid-2010s.
In 2011, an opinion article by Razer was used without authorization in the Victorian Year 12 VCE English examination, prompting concerns about her reputation following student reactions on social media.
Razer appeared in a 2017 article addressing dating issues faced by women over forty. That same year, she published an essay on Quartz titled Why I’m a communist—and why you should be, too, where she delineated differences between communism, socialism, and liberalism while advocating for innovative collective production frameworks.
In 2018, she debuted the podcast Knackers & the Vadge, which features her alter ego The Vadge alongside Knackers, a domineering stuffed toy.
She contributed an essay to the December 2020 publication A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés. A review in The Sydney Morning Herald commended her engaging narrative voice amid scholarly essays.
Health
Razer has voiced criticism of certain mental health awareness campaigns. Notably, in 2015, she publicly opposed the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Mental As” week programming.
Bibliography
- Gas Smells Awful: The Mechanics of Being a Nutcase (2001), Vintage, Australia, ISBN 1-74051-095-X
- Everything's Fine: A Beginner's Guide to Thwarting Primary Nihilism (1998), Random House, Australia, ISBN 0-09-183925-4
- In Pursuit of Hygiene (1996), Random House, Australia, ISBN 0-09-183258-6
- Co-author with Mikey Robins: Three Beers and a Chinese Meal (1995), Random House, Australia, ISBN 0-09-183072-9
- Co-author with Bernard Keane: A Short History of Stupid (2014), Allen & Unwin, Australia, ISBN 978-1-76011-054-3
- Total Propaganda: Basic Marxist Brainwashing for the Angry and the Young (2017), Allen & Unwin, Australia, ISBN 978-1-76029-731-2
Further reading
- Articles with short description
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- Triple J announcers
- Australian communists
- Australian women writers
- Australian women radio presenters
- Radio personalities from Melbourne
- Writers from Melbourne
- Living people
- 1968 births
- People educated at Narrabundah College