Dr Lee McGowan is a researcher, writer and teacher. His primary research interests are in the intersections of creative writing, sport, and community engagement. He’s recently completed co-authorship of two books, Women’s Soccer in Oceania (Routledge 2024) and Beach Soccer Histories (Routledge 2024), with support from the Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research. Dr McGowan also co-edited an anthology on Intersections of Creative Writing and Sport (Springer 2024). In 2019, he published two books, Football in Fiction: a history (Routledge) and Never Say Die: The Hundred Year Overnight Success of Australian Women’s Football (New South). His new co-authored monograph, Contemporary Literary Sports Journalism (Palgrave) will be published in 2026. As a practitioner researcher, Dr McGowan regularly attracts grant funding and produces traditional and non-traditional research outputs with his publications including journal articles, book chapters, a digital history, an exhibition, fiction, and creative non-fiction.
Dr McGowan is a Senior Fellow (HEA) and teaches Creative Writing and Publishing within UniSC’s School of Business and Creative Industries. He has designed, delivered and coordinated programs and courses in higher degree research, postgraduate coursework and undergraduate programs. He has accumulated 19 HDR completions to date (including three at UniSC). He is a core researcher at ACPIR, currently working on community capacity building and interdisciplinary creative practice research projects with the Creative Team and their partners in the UniSC Maker Space.
Professional Memberships
- Australasian Association of Writing Programs
- Australian Centre for Pacific Islands Research
- Football Collective
- Australian Society of Authors
- Sports Literature Association
Awards/Fellowships
- Queensland Community Male Champion for Women’ Football, 2019
- BCC Lord Mayor's Helen Taylor Community History Award, 2017
- Senior Fellow of the High Education Academy, 2015
- QUT Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence, 2014
- QUT Dean’s Commendation for Outstanding Thesis, 2012
- QUT Dean’s Award for Deans Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Teaching, 2012
- Varuna Fellowship, 2011
- QUT Postgraduate Writing Prize, 2009
Professional Social Media
Research grants and commissions
|
Grant / project name |
Investigators |
Funding body and A$ Value |
Year(s) |
Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SCCA Refinery Collaboration |
Leah Barclay, Tricia King, Toby Gifford. |
SCCA: $32,500 |
2024-2025 |
R|Artist Residency: Urban Ecologies offers mid-career to senior artists the opportunity to create new work. |
| Women’s football (soccer) in Oceania |
Lee McGowan, Kasey Symons, Yoko Kanemasu, Liz Ellison and Emma Evans. |
ACPIR: $4,800 |
2022-2023 |
History of women’s soccer in the Pacific Islands and current challenges for the sport. |
| 2021 Arts Queensland Arts Showcase program |
Lee McGowan, Leah Barclay, Andy Ward, Tricia King, Briony Luttrell and Megan Williams |
Arts Queensland: $49,200 |
2021-2022 |
In residence (UniSC): Interdisciplinary practice and creative exchange in Regional Queensland |
| 2018 QUT Engagement Innovation Award in partnership with Football Queensland | Lee McGowan, Tracy Grierson, Greya Wright-Brough and Alex Philp. | QUT and FQ: $50,000 | 2018 | Oral and digital social history of Women’s football in Queensland |
|
2017 Lord Mayor's Helen Taylor Community History Award |
Lee McGowan |
Brisbane City Council: $21,580 |
2017 |
History of Women’s Football in Brisbane, through a digital narrative |
|
Senses of Community |
Sandra Gattenhof with Donna Hancox, Lee McGowan, Nathan Sibthorpe and Sorin Oancea. |
QUT Creative Industries Faculty: $15,000 |
2017 |
CIF Creative Lab Studio 110 seed funded project on place-making and digital narratives through embodied practice |
|
2016 Arts Queensland Individual Award |
Lee McGowan |
Arts Queensland: $5,371 |
2016 |
Developing generative or living histories to capture women’s sports heritage |
|
Peer-Learning and professional outcomes project |
Elizabeth Ellison, Lee McGowan, Ruth Bridgstock and Bree Hadley. |
QUT CIF Learning and Teaching Grant: $5,750 |
2015 |
The facilitation of peer learning and professional outcomes through informal communities of practice in creative arts programs |
|
Developing Reusable Learning Objects |
Christy Collis, Lee McGowan, Lindy Osborn and Sean Mee. |
QUT CIF Learning and Teaching Grant: $8,500 |
2013 |
Defining factors for the successful integration of digital online content in tertiary teaching environment |
Research areas
- Creative writing – fiction and non-fiction
- Football (soccer) and sport related research
- Practice as Research
- Genre Studies
- Narrative and community engagement
Potential research projects for HDR and Honours students:
- Creative writing - fiction and non-fiction
- Football writing and sports related research
- Genre Studies
- Practice as Research
- Narrative
Teaching areas
- Creative Writing
- Screen Writing
- Literary Studies
- Genre Studies
- First Year Course Coordination
Books
- McGowan, L., Symons, K., Hoey, P., & Ellison, E. (2026) Contemporary literary sports journalism (Palgrave).
- McGowan, L., Kanemasu, Y., & Symons, K. (2024). Women’s Football in Oceania. Routledge.
- McGowan, L., Ellison, E., & Lastella, M. (2024). Beach Soccer Histories. Routledge.
- McGowan, L., & Symons, K. (Eds.) (2024). Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing. Springer
- McGowan, L. (2019). Football in Fiction: A History. Routledge.
- Crawford, F. & McGowan, L. (2019). Never Say Die: The Hundred Year Overnight Success of Australian Women’s Football. New South.
Articles and chapters
- Symons, K., & McGowan, L. Standing with FC Sankt Pauli: A reflexive autoethnographic account of a woman sports fan’s experience of German men’s professional football. Equality, diversity and inclusion: An international journal (In Press)
- McLeod, J., Zeimers, G., Robertson, J., Ordway, C., McGowan, L., & Shilbury, D. (2024). “Seven Weeks Is Not a Lot of Time”: Temporal Work and Institutional Change in Australian Football. Journal of Sport Management, 38(4), 257–270. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsm.2023-0278
- McGowan, L., Kanemasu, Y., Taylor, C., & Symons, K. (2024). Reframing Impact through Sharing stories: Reflections on emerging evaluation practices in women’s football in the Pacific Islands. In Kanemasu, Y. (Ed.) Towards a Pacific Island Sociology of Sport: Seeking New Horizons, (pp.163–181). https://doi.org/10.1108/S1476-285420240000022009
- Hoey, P. & McGowan, L. (2023). Don Davies & Hugh McIlvanney: the literary football reporters who elevated British sports journalism. In L. McGowan, & K. Symons (Eds.) Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing. Springer.
- McGowan, L., Symons, K. & Fiedler, A. (2023) Beyond the box score: Reflecting on the intersections of sport and society in creative writing. In L. McGowan, & K. Symons (Eds.) Intersections of Sport and Society in Creative Writing. Springer.
- Symons, K., & McGowan, L. (2023). Re-viewing the woman as fan: an examination of the narrative framing of the women in cinematic adaptations of Nick Hornby’s fever pitch. Sport in Society, 26(7), 1265–1279.
- Passos, A. A., Fiedler, A., Sauvage, J., Mackenzie, K., Whiley, T., Symons, K., & McGowan, L. (2023). Creative writers working on a women’s football project: an examination of the collaborative practices of differing communities on a project for the women’s game in Fiji, Samoa, and Solomon Islands. Fu Li A/UFMG, 8(2), 155-184.
- Hoey, P., McGowan, L., & Forrest, D. (2022). Subverting the inverted pyramid: Kevin McCarra and the revolution in British football journalism 1988-2020. TEXT, 26 (Special 67). https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.37826
- Forrest, D., & McGowan, L. (2021). Behind the goal: Exploring the football (soccer) goal net through object biography and creative non-fiction. TEXT, 25(Special 63). https://doi.org/10.52086/001c.29721
- Wright-Brough, F. & McGowan, L. (2021). Kicking, not screaming: an examination of football (soccer) and female footballers in Australian screen-based narratives. In: S. Millar, M.J. Power, P. Widdop, D. Parnell & J. Carr (Eds.), Football and popular culture: singing out from the stands. Routledge.
- Lastella, M., Escobar, L., Lovell, G. P., Scanlan, A., Ellison, E., McGowan, L., & Guy, J. H. (2020). An exploration of goal scoring strategies in an elite beach soccer tournament. Science and Medicine in Football, 4(3), 192–195.
- McGowan, L., Ellison E., & Lastella M. (2020). Australian Beach Soccer: Tracing Paradoxical Narratives. In: E. Ellison & D. L. Brien (Eds.) Writing the Australian Beach. Palgrave Macmillan.
- McGowan, L., Ellison E., & Lastella M. (2020). Sea-level playing fields: an exploration of the histories of beach soccer and its practices within one specific context, the Australian beach, Soccer & Society, 21(3), pp. 289–298, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14660970.2019.1620212
- McLay, G., McGowan, L., Moyle, G., & Frossard, L. (2020). Building Fields of Play: An examination of the use of notational analysis to reinterpret dynamic and sequential movement from Rugby Union to inform the creation of a new dance work. Choreographic Practices, 11(1), 163–185.
https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/chor_00017_1 - Philp, A., Jeffery, E., & McGowan, L. (2020). Collaboration and its discontents: Considerations for creative writing hdr students collaborating on traditional research outputs. TEXT, 24(59). https://doi.org/10.52086/001C.23482
- McGowan, L. (2019). ‘Women’s association football (soccer) in Brisbane, Queensland 1921–1933: new perspectives on early competition’. Sport in History, 39(2), 187–206.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17460263.2019.1602075 - Gattenhof, S., Hancox, D., McGowan, L., Sibthorpe, N. & Oancea, S. (2019). ‘Senses of Community: Place- making and digital narrative through embodied practice’. Social Alternatives 38 (1): 21–29.
- McGowan, L., Hancox, D., & Philp, A. (2019). ‘Dirty Hands: Community Engagement through practice as Research’. Social Alternatives 38 (1): 3–4.
Co-edited Special Issues
- McGowan, L. & Symons, K. (2022). ‘Creative Writing and Sport’. Special Issue 67. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses.
- Philp, A., Jeffery, E. & McGowan, L. (2020). ‘Creating Communities: Collaboration within Creative Writing and Research’. Special Issue 59. TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses.
- McGowan, L. & Hancox, H. (2019). ‘Dirty Hands: Community Engagement through practice as Research’. Special Issue. Social Alternatives 38(1).
Non-academic publications
- Symons, K., & McGowan, L. (2024). Women love playing sport – and writing about it. Here are 6 fascinating and surprising sports books by women. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/women-love-playing-sport-and-writing-about-it-here-are-6-fascinating-and-surprising-sports-books-by-women-242210
- McGowan, L. (2023). Australian women’s football: a century ago they fought for the right to play – and 10,000 people turned out to watch. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jul/23/australian-womens-football-a-century-ago-they-fought-for-the-right-to-play-and-10000-people-turned-out-to-watch
- Rathbone, K., Crawford, F. & McGowan, L. (2022). Never Say Die. New Book Network. https://newbooksnetwork.com/never-say-die
- Dower, R. Crawford, F. & McGowan, L. (2021) Never Say Die. Brisbane Writers Festival. https://bwf.org.au/2021/brisbane-writers-festival/never-say-die
- McGowan, L. (2020). ‘Jean Campbell: Australia’s First Women’s Football Superstar’. Beyond 90. Monday 16 December. https://beyond90.com.au/jean-campbell/
- Hoey, P., & L. McGowan. (2020). ‘10 x 10 Lee McGowan on The Thistle and the Grail’. Football Collective Podcast. Recorded Sunday 10 May. https://soundcloud.com/thefootballcollective/10-x-10-lee-mcgowan-on-robin-jenkinss-scottish-football-novel-the-thistle-and-the-grail
- McGowan, L. (2020). ‘Australian Women’s Football – The Early Days’. Beyond 90. Tuesday 24 March. https://beyond90.com.au/australian-womens-football-1920/
- Hoey, P., & L. McGowan. (2020). Paddy Hoey Speaks to Lee McGowan about Football in British Fiction. Season 2. Episode 3. Football Collective Podcast. Recorded Thursday 6 February 2020. https://soundcloud.com/thefootballcollective/the-football-collective-podcast-series-2-episode-3-lee-mcgowan-football-in-british-fiction
- McGowan, L. (2020). Football Queensland History. Footballqueenslandhistory.com.au
- McGowan, L. (2019). Engaging Football Communities: with the ball at Her feet. www.withtheballatherfeet.com.au
- McGowan L. (2019). ‘Australia wants to host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Equal pay for the Matildas will help our chances’ The Conversation. Wednesday 5 November. https://theconversation.com/australia-wants-to-host-the-2023-fifa-womens- world-cup-equal-pay-for-the-matildas-will-help-our-chances-125564
- McGowan, L. (2019). ‘Never Say Die: The Hundred Year overnight success’ Beyond 90. Monday 16 December. https://beyond90.com.au/never-say-die-the-hundred-year-overnight-success-of-our-game/
Dr Lee McGowan's specialist areas of knowledge include [standard text] football (soccer), the women’s game, football in fiction and most recently football communities; creative writing fiction and non-fiction; practice as research; genre studies; and narrative as a mechanism for community engagement.