Copyright © Carmel Bird 1996. All rights reserved.
November 06
Two of my stories will be
published in anthologies. 'The Legacy of Rita Marquand' in Best
Australian Stories 2006 from Black Inc, and 'Shooting the Fox'
in Stories and Memoirs from UCQ.
July/August/September 06
Writing workshops at Fintona*Melbourne
Grammar* Tasmanian Living Writers*Conference on Writing Desire at
National Library, Canberra. The title of my paper at the
Canberra conference in September is
'The Lollypop Man and the Postman's Wife'
June 2006
Dates: Sunday 4 - Writing
Fiction at The Gasworks
Sat and Sun 17&18 Writing a Creative Response
at Byron Bay
May 2006
Dates: Saturday 20th -
Writing Fiction at
Victorian Writers' Centre
Saturday 27th - Writing Memoir
April 2006
SEMINAR
Twila Papay is a Professor
of Literature and Creative Writing from Rollins College in
Florida. This month she hosted a seminar at Monash University on
women's writing in Australia.
The panel consisted of Gillian Bouras, Rosaleen Love, Jennifer
Strauss, Chandani Lokuge, Catherine Padmore and myself. Genres
discussed included novel, story, poetry, memoir and
non-fiction.
FESTIVAL
The St Kilda Writers' Festival takes
place 29-30 April. I will speak on a panel titled 'Is the Novel
Dead'? at 1.30pm on Saturday 29. Other panelists are Ben Ball and
mark Rubbo
February 2006
This short account of the writing
of my first novel appeared recently in The Age(Melbourne)
FIRST VOICE
In 2005 my first novel turned
twenty-one. It’s called Cherry
Ripe. For my seventeenth birthday my parents gave me a little
red Olivetti typewriter. The idea was that I was going to write
novels. That year, before going to university I worked in the
ice-cream factory in the day, in a restaurant at night, and then I
spent two hours teaching myself to type from Pitman’s
Typing Manual. I started writing short stories, selling the
first one to The Women’s
Weekly in 1963. I sold the Olivetti to a friend in
The interwoven histories of
the women are like the histories of many Australian families whose
beginnings in this country go back to the nineteenth century. I
have set those histories in a context of the poetic drama of loss
– loss of resources, loss of races, of species – of
so many kinds of beauty.
I reflect now on the fact that for a novel that is twenty-one Cherry
Ripe has a finger in some very current pies. Twenty-one years
ago I was working on a little green Olivetti. It all seems quite
antedeluvian.
December 2005
My story on abortion
is published this month
in
The Griffith Review. It is called "The Legacy of Rita
Marquand".Read it also here...
...........................................................................
November 2005
The audio book of Cape
Grimm is now
available as a download from Bolinda Books at www.apple.com.au/it
October 2005
Publication of The
Encyclopedia of Melbourne in which I have a story about the
statue of Queen Victoria.
.......................................................................................................................
September 2005 : INSPIRATION ON SCREEN
The background image on my computer screen is of Anna
Pavlova. I find it endlessly inspiring, heart-breakingly
beautiful. It is a black and white photograph of Pavlova dressed
as some kind of aerial sprite with wings like the wings of a
dragonfly. She has just alighted, and is poised in a
semi-crouching position, leaning forward in profile as if to pick
a flower in the lower left corner of the screen. I place the file of the novel I am
writing just within her reach so that every morning when I turn on
the computer I can lift the story from Pavlova’s hand – and
get on with my work. One of my favourite books when I was was
child was the story of Anna Pavlova’s life, and so every morning
I not only have the beauty of the image, but the model of her
industry, and the memory of the book. Enriched by this mixture as by some
amazing vitamin concotion, I get on with my day’s work. I should
add that scrawled across the darkness behind the figure is
Pavlova’s signature, resembling another dragonfly wing. The
written name is also a profound element of the inspiration.
August 2005
Cape
Grimm
has been nominated for
the
DUBLIN IMPAC
prize
...........................
I will be a guest of the Melbourne Writers' Festival
.........................
My story 'My Beloved is Mine and I am His' is
published in Antipodes.
This is a story inspired by the events surrounding an
Australian bishop who sexually abused a teenage girl. Read it
also here...
......................................................
July 2005
#Lecturing at the Conference of
the
Victorian Association for Teachers of English
Friday July 22
"Writing the Creative Response"
#Reading at 45
Downstairs with
James Griffin
Shane Molony
Julian Burnside
"Singing the Mysteries"
Sunday July 31
........................................
May 2005
At the end of May I will
be a guest at the Sydney Writers' Festival
.......................................
April 2005
My new
collection of short fiction
THE
ESSENTIAL BIRD
is published by Fourth Estate
and
A GUIDE FOR READERS AND TEACHERS
supplies notes and activities on the stories
click here
.............................................
NOTE
All my books are available from
The Grisly Wife Bookshop
Eaglemont, Melbourne.
This includes new and out-of print titles. Visit:
www.abebooks.com/home/JTHAWLEY
......................................................
2004
December 2004
Indigenous people living in
a small community in the Australian Kimberly have recently learned
that the Federal Government will offer them new gas pumps and
improved health care on certain conditions, for instance, on the
condition that they undertake to wash their children's faces twice
a day. Here is my response
to this news.
``````````````````````````````````````````````````````
November 2004
---------Best
Australian Essays 2004-------
edited by Robert
Dessaix
my essay is
"Cats
and Dogs of Spain"
***
-------Meanjin
November 04-------
my essay is
"Who
Am I"
***
................................................................
October 2004
The Australian Labor Party
lost the federal election.
Here is my response to that event.
"The Charismagiz"
....................................................................
September 2004
Best Stories Under the
Sun
Edited by Michael Wilding &David Myers
My contribution is 'What World is
This?'
--------------------------------------------
February 04
FESTIVALS
This month I will be a guest at the Como
Melbourne Writers' Festival, and on February 29th Peter
Goldsworthy will launch my new novel
cape
grimm
at the Adelaide Festival
-----------------------------------------------------------
~a story of dangerous obsessions and strange love~
For a larger image and more detail and REVIEWS
go to:
"capegrimm"
-2003-
Also check out this page where there is an image
by Lisa Roberts and a story of mine from Barcelona.
http://www.flyingcarpet.ch/Page__22.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
December 2003
This month I have stories in
Best Australian Short Stories
2003
and in
Penguin Summer Stories
____________________________________
November 2003
ACTS OF DOG
Is an anthology
of stories about dogs, edited by Debra Adelaide, published by
Random House
to be launched at the UTS
bookshop
on November 13 at 6pm.
My story
"Maps of the World With Dog" is in the collection.
------------------------------------------------
October 2003
NEW
PUBLICATION
FOREVER SHORES
Edited by Peter McNamara and
Margaret Winch
WAKEFIELD PRESS
Forever Shores brings
together some of the best Australian authors of fantasy fiction writing today. From
Isobelle Carmody’s tragic romantic style to Terry Dowling’s complex and
technical worlds, Damien Broderick’s straight-faced player in the
game of worlds, and Carmel Bird’s intriguing ‘genetic unconscious
deciding factor’ all the stories in this collection
share the same fascination with the fantastic.
*****************************
September 2003
NEW
PUBLICATION
SECRET LIVES
Secret Lives is a new anthology of
Australian short stories edited by Barry Oakley, published by Five
Mile Press.
My story
'The Woodpecker Toy Fact' is
included.
...........................................
August 2003
THE LIGHTHOUSE AT BYRON BAY
I spent the weekend at the Byron Bay Writers' Festival.
Some of the papers I gave are ...here...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July2003
CHERRY
BLACK VELVET THOUGHTS
In 'Cherry Black Velvet Thoughts' I discuss aspects of noir in
film and novel. This piece includes my juvenile response to
The Spiral Staircase....more...
June 2003
On Bloomsday I will speak on aspects
of Finnegans Wake at the Celtic Club in Melbourne.
April 2003
With images and sounds of the second Gulf War all around me, I
wrote the following essay:
"Maps of the World"
The walls of the bomb shelter were papered
with large Bible-quality maps of many countries, and maps of the
whole world, the world a soft and beautiful place, a place for
dreams and voyages and adventures. The oceans were a dreaming
egg-shell blue, the countries watery pastel shades of biscuit and
eau de nil and faint peach blush. The veins of the rivers traced
wandering spider webs, shaded sides of mountains, and mountain
ranges were fine smudges from a fairy’s feathered paintbrush.
This was the world. Before Pearl Harbour, before Hiroshima, once
upon a time, before Darwin was bombed, before the U-boat got into
Sydney Harbour, once upon a time, just there, just below forty
degrees south.
.................You may read MORE...
of this essay
March 2003
This is a section of the image which was the inspiration for the modern
ballet Fair Game to be performed by TasDance in March
during the Tasmanian festival of Ten Days On the Island. Read my
texts which accompany the performance...here
also see:
http://www.tendaysontheisland.org/Files/00061_FairGame.asp
LATROBE UNIVERSITY
Writer-in-Residence
In March I also begin a semester in
residence at Latrobe.
February 2003
This month I will go to Perth as
a guest of the Writers' Festival and while I am there I will visit
my brother and his wife and will see their pet llamas.
January2003
Australian Silky Terrier
A picture of my childhood companion
Skete...more...
-2002-
November/December 2002
Read my essay on the links
between modern suburban murders and Shakespeare's Richard111. The
essay is published this month in Meanjin and also in
Best Australian Essays 2002...read...
.......................................
October 2002
The October issue of
Good Reading features
'Cherry Orchard' my essay on journal writing...read the essay ...here...
***
Rosaleen Love will launch my
new crime novel
Open
For Inspection.
***
Also I will be a guest at the
Brisbane Writers' Festival
October 2002
You can read my essay on
Melbourne Real Estate
"Gentlemen Start Your
Nailguns"
which is in this month's
issue of
MEANJIN
New Crime
Fiction
Open For
Inspection
is published by
HarperCollins
Lizzie is a strawberry blonde
She is thirty-two
She is gorgeous
She is dead
Who knew getting into real estate could be so
dangerous? Sassy freelance journalist Courtney Frome is back. Now
long-legged Courtney is on assignment
counting bathrooms for the property pages. This is the world
of expansive bay views and renovator’s delights. For Courtney
it is just another job until Lizzie Candy is
discovered dead in her spa while Courtney is
inspecting the Candy mansion. Lizzie’s
faithless husband is a big player in real estate. But is he
the obvious answer to the obvious question? Then a
second body is discovered at another
prestige address.
Open for Inspection is a tightly told tale of
vengeance, violence and very desirable residences....more...
*******
I live in an old brick house...read on
______________________________
July/August 2002
My new Crime
Fiction
Open For
Inspection
was published by
HarperCollins
in August
------
May/June 2002
Nine/Eleven Quilts
Detail of the quilt I made
to commemorate the 20
Australian victims of 9/11.
This quilt will be on display in the Exhibition at Skillman, New
Jersey from July 28 to November 4....more...
A LECTURE TO
STUDENTS OF CREATIVE WRITING AT DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
THE FAT/SKIN/JESUS SOLUTIONS
It’s instructive to watch Australian TV in the early hours
of the morning, because there it is clear what evil really is –
it is fat and bad skin. If only...more...
April 2002
'Language of Addiction'
Addict is the name of a newish range of lipsticks by
Christian Dior. The promotional material shows an image of two
faces, partly obscured by stressed strands of black hair, through
the troubled veil of which gleam two huge scarlet blobs of
mouths.......
...more...
DEAR WRITER
My book on the process of writing has recently been published
in Indonesian.
March 2002
'Indigenous Characters in Australian
Fiction'
February 2002
My essay "Exit
Queen Victoria"- memories
of museums in Tasmania, was published in
Meanjin.
January 2002
This month I have put on the site
one of the lectures I gave in December in Barcelona:
"Climbing the Hills of Nowhere - Growing Up as a Writer in
Tasmania"
_______________________
-2001-
December 2001
*I am in Spain*
And published this month is
Storykeepers
edited by
Marion Halligan
my contribution is: 'Mathinna'
November 2001
I will be in Spain in November and December
In
Granada I will deliver the Plenary
Address at the Conference of the
Spanish Association for
Anglo-American Studies.
The subject of my address is: 'The Presence of Indigenous
Characters in Australian Fiction'.
Also I will give the McDermott Lecture at the
University of Barcelona where my topic will be: 'Climbing the
Hills of Nowhere/Growing Up as a Writer in Tasmania'.
La Laguna, Vigo,
and Lleida are other places where I will be speaking.
The trip is
sponsored by the Literature Fund of the Australia
Council.
*******October 2001
On October 27 I will be speaking at the
Sisters in Crime convention in
Melbourne.
www.vicnet.net.au/~sincoz
September 2001
Read a Story
THE HORSE MIGHT TALK
There's an old story about a man who was condemned to death for a
crime he had committed. He begged the king for a year's reprieve
during which time he said he would teach the king's horse to talk.
He explained to his friends that at least he would have another
year of life, and that in a year the king might die, or the man
might die, or the horse might die. Or the horse might talk.
Well I used to think like that. Mum would
say, Skye, you can't go on hoping for the impossible. And I'd say
I reckoned Jason would come good in the end. Once we're married,
I'd say, you'll see. He'll be able to get right away from his
family's influence. Mum said pigs might fly
...[more]...
PAPERBACK RELEASE
in August 2001
the paperback version of :
is launched
order from
Gleebooks
...[more]...
July 2001
BLUEBEARD
The Function of the
Traditional Narrative in ‘The Piano’
The image of Bluebeard, with his
nightmare chamber of horrors, is one that haunts some of the
feminist texts created at the end of the twentieth century. ‘The
Piano’ is one of these texts...[more]...
June 2001
FEDERATION
AND
BUNYIP* BLUEGUM
In May Australia celebrated
the centenary of the time when the separate states finally came
together to form the nation. As part of the discourse of the
celebration I was one of the speakers on a panel which
interrogated the existence and nature of an Australian literary
canon. There was the question of what Australian texts should –
and for what reasons – be introduced to students in Australian
secondary schools. The following piece is an extract from my
paper.
*A bunyip is a mythical Australian water monster.
The word was originally ‘banib’ in an Aboriginal language. In
the text cited in the essay, Bunyip Bluegum is a friendly koala.
...[more]...
May
2001
NEW BOOKSHOP IN MELBOURNE
I went to the launch of The Grisly Wife Bookshop in Eaglemont. The
amazing name honors a novel The Grisly Wife, written by
Rodney Hall in 1993, and Rodney was there to make the launching
speech. The shop stocks only Australian books, both new and
second-hand. There is a vast and fascinating collection of
Australiana. People can contact the owner John Thawley: jthawley@ozemail.com.au
April 2001
READING: an essay
Are you in the library, in the spa, on the train – in the
sunshine, in the rain? Are you reading a book or a photocopy of
some pages? Are you reading on a screen? What if you are listening
to this on tape? What if someone is reading aloud to you?
...[more]...
I have just added some notes to the Work in Progress page. ...[more]...
March
2001
This month I have
been invited to speak at the Mildura Arts Festival. This is a
really exciting occasion for me since I will receive the Philip
Hodgins Award. Philip was a young Australian poet who died
of leukaemia in 1995, and the Award in his name is given each
year at the Festival to a writer whose work is deemed to reflect
the values that Philip embodied in his poetry. It will be a great
honour for me, as I am a great admirer of his work.
Philip Hodgins' New and Selected Poems is published (2001) by Duffy and Snellgrove.
Mathinna
In March 2001 I will also be speaking at the Canberra Word Festival.
The subject of the talk is: Australian writing which has influenced
and inspired me. The central text I look at is a letter written
in 1841 by Mathinna, an Aboriginal Tasmanian child.
...[more]...
February
2001
The
Golden Moment
This story is in The Penguin Century of Australian Stories,
and it has recently been translated in to Arabic for publication
in Kalimat, an Australian-Arabic literary quarterly. You
may contact the editor of the journal: raghid@ozemail.com.au
...[more]...
January
2001
Ties of Blood
The
following story of mine has just been translated into Czech and
published in Prague in an anthology Antologie Soucasnych Australskych
Povidek. The book is published by Apsida, and is edited by
Alexandra Büchler...[more]...
-2000-
November
2000
Eastern
Libraries Short Story Competition
2000
The
following piece is the transcript of a speech I made at the Belgrave
Library where I was invited to judge a competition in the
writing of short stories.
I
invite you to listen to....[more].....
Books
At The Beach House
This
piece is my response to a request for a list of books I might
hope to discover at a rented beach house. I
hope that this beach house belongs to a reviewer who leaves in
the bookshelf copies of some of the latest books. So what is there
is:....[more].....
October
2000
My First Typewriter
Because I always reckoned I was going to
be a novelist, my parents gave me a typewriter for my seventeenth
birthday. It was an adorable little Olivetti portable letter-writer,
bright red......[more].....
September
2000
News From the Venice
Film Festival 2000 'A Telephone Call For
Genevieve Snow', Peter Long's movie adaptation of my short
story has won the Silver Lion for the best film in the short
film category ...[more]...
August
2000
The BIG NEWS: The movie of my story
'A Telephone Call For Genevieve Snow' has been selected to
show at the Venice
Film Festival. Congratulations to Director
Peter Long, and good luck too.
I have written a dramatic adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 'Alice' and this will premiere at Lauriston Girls' School Melbourne this month. (August 16, 17, 18)
July
2000
Reflections
On Keeping A Writer's Journal: Rose Of
Jericho
‘In a glass-fronted cabinet, beside a few delicate teacups
and a piece of scrimshaw, my mother kept a pepperpot. It was of
classic Georgian shape, a tiny phallic basilica of a thing, not
silver, but made from dark golden wood, intricately carved with
designs of multiform roses. You unscrewed the dome and put in
the ground pepper;........[more]
......
June
2000
A Telephone Call For Genevieve Snow The
Movie
Screening at the St Kilda Film Festival
in June is Peter Long's
movie adaptation of my story 'A Telephone
Call For Genevieve Snow' The film is a black
and white short (22 minutes) directed by Peter Long, produced
by Beth Frey and starring Beth Buchanan, Damien Richardson and
Esme Melville.
A
Telephone Call For Genevieve Snow
News From the Venice
Film Festival 2000 'A Telephone Call For Genevieve
Snow', Peter Long's movie adaptation of my short story has won the
Silver Lion for the best film in the short film category
In
the early part of the year 2000 I had three new books published.
They
were a crime novel, an anthology and a children’s picture book.
The
Crime Novel: Unholy
Writ (Harper Collins).....[more]
The
Anthology: The Penguin Century of Australian Stories (Penguin)
A
hundred stories from a hundred of the best Australian writers, spanning
the last hundred years. Includes writers such as Robert Drewe, Henry
Lawson, Brian Matthews, Matthew Condon, Christina Stead, Marion Halligan
and Helen Garner.[...more...]
The
Illustrated Children's book: The Cassowary's Quiz (Random
House)
Some of the beautiful illustrations are here.
Illustrated
by Anita Mertzlin
A
Russian doll and a peg doll living in the Australian bush meet a cassowary
bird who offers them the chance of a lifetime. This is a story where
the lives of native birds and the imaginations of the two dolls blend
to take readers into a world of magical
-1999-
November
99
The
following essay celebrates the 1999 republication of my comic
novel CRISIS
Gender
and Writing
So
I have decided to come out as a woman, after all. It’s a short
but moving story. For a time, I was a man....[more]..
October
99
This
is an essay I wrote for the new collection The Nature of Gardens
which is edited by Peter Timms, published by Allen and Unwin
Translating
Paradise
My
father cultivated our suburban garden; he also had an interesting
library, some of the books being books about gardening and gardens.
I took an early delight in the garden, and also in the books.
In fact I developed a lust for reading, and also a lust for,....[more]...
August
99
Memories
of Melbourne
Long ago, on the twelfth of July in 1690,
Irish Protestants celebrated a victory at the Battle of the Boyne.
In the small hours of the morning, as I was lying awake in South
Yarra with my baby daughter, on the twelfth of July in 1975, I
heard the explosion....[more]........
June
99
Writing
a Novel
If
there is one advertisement you will probably never see in the
Positions Vacant it's: 'Novelist. Must have own PC, thick skin,
soft heart.'....[more]......
May
99
Miles
Franklin Award
Red Shoes
has been short-listed for the Miles Franklin Award. This is the
third time one of my books has been on the short-list, the other
novels being The Bluebird Cafe and
The White Garden.
The
other short-listed novels for 1999 are: Eucalyptus by Murray
Bail, The Golden Dress by Marion Halligan, Mr Darwin's
Shooter by Roger MacDonald, Three Dollars by Elliott
Perlman
April
99
Jenni
and the Poets
My essay which follows is published this
month in Overland, a quarterly magazine of Australian poetry and
prose. .[more]...
March
99
Cries
Unheard
by Gitta Sereny-
a brief review
Much
of my fiction is concerned with the way societies treat their
children..[more]...
February
99
The Picture of Doreen Gray
Every
Christmas Shadbolt Gray sent his sister Charmaine a letter....[more].....
January 99
Double Fatality
It was three o'clock in the morning.. [more]..
December
98
Possum
Every fine night for seven years .....[more]...
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