Longlisted in the 2016 Competition, ELEANOR FITZSIMONS profiles the life and short story writing of ‘New Woman’ George Egerton: ‘Egerton’s women reject their proscribed roles as guardians of morality, and refuse to engage in the heteronormative courtship plots familiar to readers of the time. Instead, they cooperate with other women, often overcoming constructed ethnic and social divisions in pursuit of agency and self-determination…’
JOE CUSHNAN looks at the life of writer and actor James Ellis and his short story collection, Home and Away: Ten Tales and Three Dreams: “The story told at your mother’s knee and the nursery rhyme are, I submit, most people’s introduction to the big wide world of literature”
STEPHEN HARGADON both profiles the writing life of Julian Maclaren-Ross and recommends his storytelling voice: ‘He is slangy and colloquial, there is much dialogue. This is true. But it is not the whole of his immense gift … His stories are full of crisp, rhythmic exchanges…’
‘Elizabeth Bowen’s commitment to the short story was extraordinary. Best known for her novels, she has said, according to Lee, that she would give up any of these for her short stories…’ AIMEE GASSTON draws us into the life and writing of Elizabeth Bowen.
CHRISTINE GENOVESE discusses Rosemond Lehmann’s use of personal memory in her short story, The Red-Haired Miss Daintreys: ‘…a meticulously structured masterpiece, teasingly disguised as haphazard recollections from childhood…’
ELEANOR FITZSIMONS profiles the writing life of Maeve Brennan: ‘…it should have come as no great surprise to readers of The New Yorker when the Long-Winded Lady, columnist and faithful, if eccentric, documenter of life in the eponymous city, was unmasked as Irishwoman Maeve Brennan, an immigrant who had arrived in her mid-twenties…’
JENNIE RYAN roughs it in the Australian Outback with Henry Lawson’s short story, The Drover’s Wife: ‘…he told of a lived experience. His stories are populated with those who truly adopted and loved this new land…’
JENNIFER HARVEY peers beneath the surface of The Lagoon by Janet Frame: ‘…this is an essay about the way a writer sees the world, and the sensitivities a writer brings to experiences which may, at times, come close to madness…’
GEOFFREY HEPTONSTALL profiles the writing life of Jorge Luis Borges: ‘A Borges world is one of paradox and irony. In a few paragraphs, he is able to suggest possibilities that open doors into the infinite…’
LUCY DURRANT profiles the life and writing of Jean Rhys: ‘When Jean Rhys was finally given the recognition she deserved, after nearly twenty years in obscurity, she reacted as blasé and bitterly as anyone who has read her stories might expect…’
