“At home in our own skin” is a phrase used elegantly by David Malouf in a poem written for Chris Wallace-Crabbe as his fellow poet approached his 80th birthday. Malouf, one of Australia’s finest living writers, turned 80 on March 20. Two books, Earth Hour (a poetry collection in which the Wallace-Crabbe poem appears) and
Black humour, a detective who’s theologically literate and a chimp called Django … A tax on atheism, monologues about mirror neurons and a chillingly Chandler-esque atmosphere … This literary thriller by Diego Marani has raised Catholic hackles and garnered good reviews. Dare you hunt God’s Dog down? What are we talking about? Papal policeman Domingo
Do you need to have read George Eliot’s Middlemarch to be a fully realised human being? Rebecca Mead, author of The Road to Middlemarch, believes so — and says she is barely exaggerating in making her claim. Mead is a British-born author and New Yorker journalist whose love affair with George Eliot’s famed work began
The Stella Prize, a major literary award celebrating Australian women’s writing, this week announced the 2014 Stella Prize longlist: Letter to George Clooney by Debra Adelaide Moving Among Strangers by Gabrielle Carey Burial Rites by Hannah Kent Night Games by Anna Krien Mullumbimby by Melissa Lucashenko The Night Guest by Fiona McFarlane Boy, Lost by
Forget defying old age by wearing purple. The septuagenarian and her coterie at the heart of this humorous novel have far more extreme acts of rebellion in mind. What are we talking about? The latest novel from Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg, featuring some spirited seniors on a madcap quest for a better life. Elevator pitch … Who
In 2012, 20,000 copies of her book A Ripple in Time were downloaded on Kindle devices in just five days. UK author, Julia Hughes, tells ABBW about shaping griffins, marketing e-books, finding inspiration in her village that has strong ANZAC connections, enjoying Aussie band, The Go-Betweens … and offering you two of her books free
Just as a city built on swamp and peat is vulnerable — so, too, is a family built on secrets and silences. New Zealand author, Lloyd Jones, said the earthquake that hit Christchurch on February 22, 2011, cracked the city open “like an eggshell”. Five weeks later, he visited the city and found it was
Mark Smith has won the joanne burns Award for “10.42 to Sydenham”, a short-short story, told from the perspective of an African migrant, about a girl being bullied on a train. The joanne burns Award is a micro-fiction and prose poem competition for works of up to 800 words. joanne burns is one of Australia’s
Lucien Bernard is the central character in The Paris Architect and, as Lucien’s wife Celeste leaves, she calls him an “architectural Mephistopheles”. It’s not until much later in this intriguing novel that he acknowledges she was right. Set in Occupied France during World War II, The Paris Architect opens with Lucien Bernard heading to a
What does a ghost writer do? ABBW recently interviewed Sylvia Gredig, a ghost writer and editor in Cologne, Germany, to find out. What appealed to you about becoming a ghost writer? I was given my first chance at ghost writing during my training in proofreading and editing. That was great fun and it was exciting
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