Roslyn Petelin
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Roslyn Petelin

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Roslyn Petelin is a grammar guru and Honorary Associate Professor in Writing at The University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, Australia, whose lifelong fascination with language and grammar has indelibly inspired generations of students. Many of the graduates of her Writing, Editing, and Publishing program are enjoying stellar careers internationally in the media and in publishing. She has run writing workshops as a corporate consultant in London, New York City, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, and Jakarta, and taught writing at Cornell University and Queensland University of Technology before joining UQ in 2000.

Roslyn's book, How Writing Works: A Field Guide to Effective Writing, published in 2016, is a manual and a manifesto for enhancing writing. The revised 2nd edition was published by Routledge in 2022. She wrote the book to capture the practical strategies and knowledge gained over several decades of teaching writing; to acknowledge the way in which writing is now at the center of the social, academic, and professional worlds, where everyone's a writer and words matter more than ever; to incorporate some of the dazzling writing produced by her students; and to capitalise on the experience of preparing and delivering a MOOC (massive open online course), WRITE101X: English Grammar and Style, with her graduate students.

Her most recent followers are the close to one million students aged from 8 to 80 who have registered for WRITE101X: English Grammar and Style, which she initiated in 2014 for the edX consortium set up by Harvard University and MIT. In the current, worldwide 'clamor for grammar', students from more than 200 countries and territories have enthusiastically participated in the MOOC, which features videos, course materials, diagnostic tests, quizzes, activities, and interviews with the world's leading grammarians, David Crystal, Geoffrey Pullum, and Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl).

Roslyn is an honorary life member of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association and co-authored Professional Communication: Principles and Applications (with Peter Putnis) and The Professional Writing Guide: Writing Well and Knowing Why (with Marsha Durham). She edited the Australian Journal of Communication from 1988-2013. She has written many articles on language for The Conversation. Her latest book, the 3rd edition of How Writing Works, will be published by Routledge in June 2026. The updated edition substantially features how writing works with generative AI.
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