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Tag Archives: Australian authors

Review of Animal People by Charlotte Wood in the Age today

October 8, 2011 – 4:55 pm

I reviewed Charlotte Wood’s new novel Animal People for the Age and it looks like it has already found its way online, on the SMH website (not sure if it was in their print version as well). It is definitely one of the best Australian books I’ve read this year, and I do encourage you to [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Angela's Publications, Reviews + Analyses | Also tagged Angela's Publications, Animal People, Australian fiction, Australian literature, charlotte wood, contemporary Australia, Sydney, The Age | Comments (2)

Between worlds: Dominic Smith on Bright and Distant Shores

September 27, 2011 – 12:42 pm

Allen & Unwin, 9781742374161, 2011 (Aus paperback, ebook + US/Kindle) Bright and Distant Shores is hugely imaginative historical fiction. It’s set just before the dawn of the 20th century in Chicago and the South Pacific. Owen Graves is sent by Hale Gray, the president of Chicago First Equitable, to collect some ‘special items’ to display [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Interviews + Profiles | Also tagged 19th Century, adventure, Allen & Unwin, ambition, American authors, Australian authors living in the US, author interviews, Bright and Distant Shores, capitalism, Chicago, class, collecting, distance, Dominic Smith, enterprise, exploration, explorers, faith, historical fiction, history, imaginative novels, industrialisation, interviews, language, Melanesia, Middle Passage, missionaries, Moby Dick, natives, naturalists, Pacific Islands, Sacred Hunger, sea lore, sea voyaging, seafaring, social commentary, Treasure Island, urban, writing | Comments (0)

Guest review: Raili Simojoki on The Amateur Science of Love by Craig Sherborne

June 9, 2011 – 7:15 am

Text Publishing, June 2011 9781921758010 (trade paperback, ebook) Reviewed by Raili Simojoki If you’ve read any of Craig Sherborne’s writing, you’ll know not to expect a rosy-eyed view of the world. The Amateur Science of Love follows the grim journey of a love affair gone wrong. Colin leaves the unglamorous environs of his parents’ farm [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Other People's Words, Reviews + Analyses | Also tagged acerbic, actors, aspirations, Australian fiction, Australian literature, banality, biting, Craig Sherborne, desire, deterioration, guest reviews, humorous, love affair, love gone wrong, psychological, Raili Simojoki, realism, relationships gone sour, relationships gone wrong, social realism, Text Publishing, The Amateur Science of Love, truthful, unlikeble characters | Comments (2)

Some of my short stories available as ebooks

June 3, 2011 – 9:47 am

I decided to extend the life of some of my short stories that have been published in journals/magazines over the last few years, by publishing them digitally. It’s a bit of a (fairly safe) experiment in self-publishing and the world of ebooks. I’m loving reading on my Kobo eReader, and I’ve made these stories available [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Angela's Publications | Also tagged Angela Meyer, anxiety, Australian fiction, Cecile Raposo-Knight, consumerism, digital publishing, dystopian, ebooks, epub, ereaders, ereading, Kenneth Erickson, Kindle, Lily Mae Martin, literary fiction, my publications, near-future, PDF, sensation, SF, short stories, short story ebooks, Smashwords, Sonja Meyer, Stanza, weird fiction | Comments (4)

Whole-hearted lovers and layers of history: an interview with Mardi McConnochie, author of The Voyagers

May 18, 2011 – 9:07 am

Viking, May 2011 9780670075966 (Aus, ebook) Stead, a sailor, arrives in Sydney Harbour in 1943. He hasn’t seen Marina for five years, and yet he can’t forget the three days they spent together prior to the war. Some undeniable connection had been forged. He finds out she failed to enrol in the music school she was [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Interviews + Profiles | Also tagged art, Australian fiction, Changi, commercial fiction, emotion, historical fiction, Jane Eyre, layers of history, literary love stories, love, love story, Mardi McConnochie, music, romance, satisfying reads, SWF 2011, Sydney Writers Festival 2011, The Voyagers, wartime London, wartime Shanghai, wartime Sydney, women in wartime | Comments (1)

Mystery, strangeness and coming-of-age: an interview with Christopher Currie, author of The Ottoman Motel

May 16, 2011 – 7:15 am

Text Publishing, May 2011, 9781921758164 (Aus, US, UK) The parents of a young boy disappear in a small, strange town called Reception, in Christopher Currie’s atmospheric debut novel The Ottoman Motel. The townfolk don’t seem to be trying too hard to find Simon’s parents, and it isn’t the first disappearance in the area. Currie’s debut is [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Interviews + Profiles | Also tagged Australian literature, chicken nuggets, Chris Currie, Christopher Currie, coming of age, crime fiction, debut authors, debut novels, Furious Horses, mystery, small coastal towns, small town stories, The Ottoman Motel, thriller, Vogel award | Comments (1)

Let’s read writing by women

May 13, 2011 – 11:02 am

A new committee is being set up to pursue equal rights for women writers in Australia. Besides research, lobbying and setting up mentorships, the committee is looking at establishing a literary prize for Australian women writers, along the lines of the UK’s Orange Prize. The steering committee (including novelist and publisher Sophie Cunningham, critic and [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Commentary | Also tagged Australian literature, Australian Orange prize, Australian women writers, bias, chick-lit, equality, female authors, female critics, feminism, gender bias, literary prize for Australian female authors, literature, romance, women's writing, writing by women | Comments (42)

Guest review: Imogen Baratta on Blue Skies by Helen Hodgman

May 2, 2011 – 7:15 am

Text Publishing 9781921758133, March 2011 (Aus) (also UK) Reviewed by Imogen Baratta Helen Hodgman’s Blue Skies tells the story of an unnamed young wife and mother living in the ‘heart shaped island’ of Tasmania. The agonising banality of her day-to-day life plays out within the confines of stark, suffocating suburbia, amid the manicured lawns and [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Other People's Words, Reviews + Analyses | Also tagged 1970s fiction, Australian fiction, Blue Skies, chick-lit, Depression, feminism, feminist literature, feminist novels, fiction set in Tasmania, guest reviews, Helen Hodgman, Imogen Baratta, psychological fiction, rediscovered classics, sardonic, suburbia, Text Publishing, women writers, women's fiction | Comments (0)

Guest review: Lyndon Riggall on The Girl With No Hands by Angela Slatter

March 25, 2011 – 7:15 am

Ticonderoga Publications, 2011 9780980628883 (Aus, US, UK) reviewed by Lyndon Riggall In my first year at University I studied fairytales, and more specifically Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, a book which is arguably the poster-child of fairytale re-imaginings. Carter writes well, and in many cases her stories spin beautifully away from tradition while remaining neatly tied [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Other People's Words, Reviews + Analyses | Also tagged Angela Carter, Angela Slatter, Australian fantasy, Australian literature, erotic, fairytales, fantasy, feminism, re-imagined fairytales, sexy fairytales, The Girl With No Hands, Ticonderoga Publications, zombie romance | Comments (1)

This Too Shall Pass by SJ Finn

March 17, 2011 – 12:15 pm

This review first appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald: Spectrum on the weekend of February 26-27. Sleepers Publishing 9781742700380 March 2011 (Aus) Jen Montgomery, known as ‘Monty’, had always considered herself a ‘forever’ person, until years into her marriage when something shifted. Monty began a relationship with another woman. This Too Shall Pass not only reflects on [...]

By Angela Meyer | Posted in Reviews + Analyses | Also tagged Australian literature, homosexuality, literary fiction, marriage break-up, mid-life narrative, novels about work, queer themes, realism, S.J. Finn, SJ Finn, Sleepers, Sleepers Publishin, small press, This Too Shall Pass | Comments (0)