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Georgia Blain

When Georgia Blain died at the age of fifty-one in 2016, the reading public was robbed of a superb prose writer in her prime. Her final and, some consider, best novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog (2016), achieved wide critical acclaim. Shortly after Blain succumbed to brain cancer, that novel went on to win or be shortlisted in a slew of national prizes.

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The ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize – one of the country’s major short story prizes – is once again open. Generous support from ABR Patron Ian Dickson has ...

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Between a Wolf and a Dog is Georgia Blain's eighth book: it follows five previous novels, an acclaimed short-story collection (The Secret Lives of Men, 2013) and Births, Deaths, Marriages (2008), a sublime memoir-in-essays. Blain has an affinity for domestic realism with a dark edge and an unstinting eye: she is fascinated by the faultline ...

Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight

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December 2015, no. 377

The best short stories are like a glimpse into a room as you rush past in a train – the messy kitchen table, an empty handbag, the perfectly made bed – a snapshot with enough detail to suggest so much more.

In Six Bedrooms, Tegan Bennett Daylight takes us into the world of growing up, of desire and shame, and of repeatedly making mistakes. She k ...

In the spirit of our annual ‘Books of the Year’ feature, in which we ask a range of writers and critics to nominate their favourite new fiction and non-fiction titles, we asked ten Australian short story writers to nominate their favourite short story collections and individual stories. As this is the first time we have run a short-story themed feature of this nature, our ten writers were free to nominate older titles if they wished to do so. Our only request was that at least one of their selections should have been published recently and that at least one be by an Australian author.

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In one of Georgia Blain’s subtle, beautifully paced stories, a young girl is given an IQ test. Believing it to be a game, she is outraged when her older brother crows about his results and she realises she has been evaluated. Later, as an adult, she can put her childhood indignation into words: ‘I thought it was just a matter of random chance. I should have been told that there was a predetermined pattern for me to decipher, and rules to follow.’ But at eight she can only protest at the psychologist’s betrayal: ‘She never said it was a test.’

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Something happened to the Australian suburban novel while Georgia Blain was trying her hand at memoir in Births Deaths Marriages (2008) and Young Adult fiction in Darkwater (2010). Put it down to The Slap juggernaut. The working family is now angry, high, horny, and mad about tattoos. Gone are the scenes of inarticulate loss at the kitchen ...

Darkwater by Georgia Blain & This is Shyness by Leanne Hall

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April 2011, no. 330

Darkness, both literal and symbolic, pervadesthese two recent books. Darkwater, the first Young Adult title by established writer Georgia Blain...

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Births Deaths Marriages by Georgia Blain & The After Life by Kathleen Stewart

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May 2008, no. 301

Each of these memoirs – Births Deaths Marriages: true tales, by Georgia Blain, and The After Life: A Memoir, by Kathleen Stewart – is the work of an accomplished novelist, and each writer is well aware of the risks involved in the shift of mode. If the novel, as Blain maintains, provides a place for the writer to hide, the memoir is the place of self-exposure, of speaking the truth, or a version of the truth. Although it is the wellspring of all creativity, to write about the life, to pin it down, is in a sense to distort it. Memory is unreliable and bias is inevitable. There is also the problem of exposing others, and the others in each of these memoirs are easily identified. Each writer faces the challenges of memoir in an entirely different way. The narrative voice in Births Deaths Marriages is thoughtful and contemplative; the account qualified at times by self-doubt. Stewart’s account, on the other hand, is sure of its truth. It is dramatic, forceful and defiant.

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The Blind Eye by Georgia Blain & Bella Vista by Catherine Jinks

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September 2001, no. 234

Reading Australian novels is often like gazing through an album of snapshots taken by various photographers attending the same party. The subject matter will depend on what stage of the evening the photos were taken – all the way from pre-dinner drinks to the finale of a Bacchanalian brawl – and it will depend, of course, on who is taking the photos. What is the photographer looking for? Who are the subjects that captivate?

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