Carmel Bird : 'flying about the place'

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Abstract

Few Australian writers have made a contribution to Australian literature as significant and sustained as Carmel Bird. Since publishing a collection of short stories in 1983 the Tasmanian-born writer and editor has gone on to publish over thirty books, many of which have been nominated for major awards including the Miles Franklin for which she has been listed three times. There are novels including The Bluebird Café (1990), The White Garden (1995), Red Shoes (1998) and Cape Grimm (2004). Short story collections include The Woodpecker Toy Fact and Other Stories (1997), The Common Rat (1993), Automatic Teller (1996) and The Essential Bird (2005). There are also three children’s books, six non-fiction titles – including the wildly successful writer’s guide Dear Writer (1998, 1996, 2013) – numerous edited anthologies including The Writing on the Wall: Collection of Poetry and Prose by Women (1985), Australian Short Stories (1990) and The Stolen Children: Their Stories (1998) as well as editor posts for Syllable, Fine Line and Meanjin (fiction editor, 2003-2007). Her bewildering dexterity for form has also extended to the writing of a radio play for the ABC and BBC and a ballet for Tasdance. She is generally credited with initiating the formal teaching of creative writing in Melbourne in the 1980s after proposing a course at the Council of Adult Education – which no-one wanted to teach – before moving on to run popular courses at universities including RMIT, Deakin, the Victorian College of the Arts, La Trobe and Monash. Finally, there is the short fiction writing award in her name.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages12
JournalSydney Review of Books
VolumeDecember 4, 2015
Publication statusPublished - 2015

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