Kirsten Tranter

Kirsten Tranter grew up in Sydney and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the author of three novels, including Hold (2016), longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her first novel, The Legacy, was praised by The Guardian as ‘a seductive contemporary literary thriller… a knowing, classy debut’ and was a Kirkus Review début novel of the year; it was shortlisted for the ALS Gold Medal and the ABIA literary fiction award, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin award. Kirsten completed a PhD in English Literature at Rutgers University in 2008, and publishes essays, journalism, and literary criticism. She is a founder of the Stella Prize for Australian women’s writing.

2018 Calibre Essay Prize (runner-up): 'Once Again: Outside in the House of Art'

May 2018, no. 401 • 26 April 2018

The setting is a gorgeous, somewhat decayed, many-roomed Georgian mansion in upstate New York, near the Hudson, in 2012. Nine screens placed around a darkened gallery space each show a room of the house, most of them occupied by a person and a musical instrument: a willowy woman in a slip on a chaise longue, arms wrapped around a cello; a dark-skinned man seated at an ornate desk leaning intently ... (read more)