The Best Australian Essays 2015 (41 page)

Publication Details

James Bradley
's ‘Strange Weather: Writing the Anthropocene' appeared in
The Weekend Australian
, 24–25 January 2015.

Anwen Crawford
's ‘The World Needs Female Rock Critics' appeared in
The New Yorker
, 26 May 2015. [Credit: Anwen Crawford/
The New Yorker
; © Conde Nast.]

Alison Croggon
's ‘Trigger Warning' appeared in
Overland
, vol. 218, Autumn 2015.

Sophie Cunningham
's ‘Staying With the Trouble' appeared in
Australian Book Review
, no. 371, May 2015.

Tegan Bennett Daylight
's ‘Fully Present, Utterly Connected' appeared in
Sydney Review of Books
, 31 October 2014.

Ceridwen Dovey
's ‘The Pencil and the Damage Done' appeared in
The Monthly
, November 2014.

Gerard Elson
's ‘Bibliomancer: Nick Cave, Writer' appeared in
Island
, no. 138, 2014.

Delia Falconer
's ‘Seven Poor Men of Sydney' was a talk delivered to a Sydney Ideas forum in April 2015. It first appeared in slightly different form as the introduction to Melbourne University Press's 2015 edition of Christina Stead's
Seven Poor Men of Sydney
.

Tim Flannery
's ‘How You Consist of Trillions of Tiny Machines' appeared in
New York Review of Books
, 9 July 2015.

Helen Garner
's ‘The Insults of Age' appeared in
The Monthly
, May 2015.

Rebecca Giggs
' ‘Open Ground' appeared in
Griffith Review
, no. 47, January 2015.

Ashley Hay
's ‘Mirror Rim: Lost and Found on the Abrolhos' appeared in
Griffith Review
, no. 47, January 2015.

Karen Hitchcock
's ‘Too Many Pills: On Lifestyle Diseases and Quick Fixes' appeared in
The Monthly
, September 2015.

Anna Krien
's ‘My Granny's Last Wish' appeared in
It Happened in a Holden
, edited by Paddy O'Reilly (Affirm Press, 2014).

Matthew Lamb
's ‘The Meeting That Never Was' appeared in
Los Angeles Review of Books
, 13 March 2015.

Mungo MacCallum
's ‘Malcolm Fraser: Obituary' appeared in
The Australian
, 20 March 2015.

Mark Mordue
's ‘The Library of Shadows' appeared in
The Weekend Australian
(under the title ‘The Art of Darkness'), 16–17 May 2015.

Drusilla Modjeska
's ‘The Informed Imagination' appeared in
Meanjin
, vol. 74, no. 2, 2015.

Noel Pearson
's ‘Remote Control: Ten Years of Struggle and Success in Indigenous Australia' appeared in
The Monthly
, May 2015.

DBC Pierre
's ‘Leaving Ourselves at Home' appeared in
New Philosopher
, no. 8, 2015.

Felicity Plunkett
's ‘Sound Bridges: A Profile of Gurrumul' appeared in
Australian Book Review
, no. 372, June–July 2015.

Stephen Romei
's ‘An Uneasy Masterpiece' appeared in
The Weekend Australian Review
, 1 August 2015.

Nicolas Rothwell
's ‘The Northern Wilds: How to Build History into a Coastline' appeared in
The Weekend Australian
, 7–8 March 2015.

Guy Rundle
's ‘L'état, C'est Charlie' appeared in
Arena
, 1 February 2015.

Christian Ryan
's ‘The Thirty-ninth Summer of DK Lillee' appeared in
The Cricket Monthly
, May 2015.

Sebastian Smee
's ‘Confronting the Unthinkable in Goya's Art' appeared in
The Boston Globe
, 10 January 2015.

Jeff Sparrow
's ‘Re-reading the Famous Five and Biggles' appeared in
The Guardian
, 25 November 2015.

Kirsten Tranter
's ‘Go, Little Book' appeared in
Overland
, no. 217, Summer 2014.

Maria Tumarkin
's ‘No Dogs, No Fruit, No Firearms, No Professors' appeared in
Right Now
, no. 1134, 11 May 2015.

David Walsh
's ‘Skin in the Game' appeared in
The Monthly
, February 2015.

Nadia Wheatley
's ‘Belsen: Mapping the Memories' appeared in
Griffith Review
, 23 June 2015.

Tim Winton
's ‘Havoc: A Life in Accidents' appeared in
The Monthly
, May 2015.

Notes on Contributors

T
HE
E
DITOR

Geordie Williamson
has been chief literary critic of
The Australian
since 2008. He was awarded the Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year in 2011, and published his first book,
The Burning Library
, on some neglected figures from Australian literature, in 2012. He is currently working on his second, an account of his Scottish family and their half-century relationship with Easter Island.

C
ONTRIBUTORS

James Bradley
is a novelist and critic. His books include the novels
Wrack
,
The Deep Field
,
The Resurrectionist
and most recently
Clade
, a book of poetry,
Paper Nautilus
, and
The Penguin Book of the Ocean
. In 2012 he won the Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year. He blogs at
www.cityoftongues.com
.

Anwen Crawford
is the music critic for the
Monthly
. Her essays have appeared in publications including
Overland
,
Meanjin
, the
Age
and the
New Yorker
. Her book,
Live Through This
, is published by Bloomsbury.

Alison Croggon
's writing includes novels, poetry, opera libretti and criticism. She has won several prizes, including the 2009 Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year and the 2015 Art Music Award for Best Vocal/Choral Work. Her most recent novel is
The River and the Book
(2015).

Sophie Cunningham
is the author of two novels,
Geography
(2004) and
Bird
(2008), and two non-fiction books,
Melbourne
(2011) and
Warning: The Story of Cyclone Tracy
(2014), which was shortlisted for several major awards. Her essay ‘Staying With the Trouble' was the winner of the 2015 Calibre Prize.

Tegan Bennett Daylight
is a fiction writer, critic and teacher. She is the author of three novels:
Bombora
(1996),
What Falls Away
(2001) and
Safety
(2006), and the short story collection
Six Bedrooms
, published in 2015. She lives in the Blue Mountains with her husband and children.

Ceridwen Dovey
is the author of the novel
Blood Kin
and the story collection
Only the Animals
, which won the inaugural Readings New Australian Writing Award. She writes regularly for the
Monthly
and the
New Yorker
online, and lives in Sydney.

Gerard Elson
is Interviews Editor for
Kill Your Darlings
literary magazine and the 2015 recipient of the ABA Penguin Random House Young Bookseller of the Year award. His writing has been published in
The Review of Australian Fiction
, the
Big Issue
and
Higher Arc
.

Delia Falconer
is the author of two novels,
The Service of Clouds
and
The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers
. Her most recent book is
Sydney
, in New South's Australian cities series. Her essays and stories have appeared in many anthologies, including the
Penguin Century of Australian Stories
and the
Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature
. She is a senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney.

Tim Flannery
has published over a dozen books, including
The Future Eaters
,
The Eternal Frontier
,
The Weather Makers
,
Now or Never: A Sustainable Future for Australia?
,
Here on Earth
and
Atmosphere of Hope
. He was Australian of the Year in 2007.

Helen Garner
was born in Geelong in 1942 and lives in Melbourne. Since 1977 she has published eleven books of fiction, essays and long-form non-fiction, including
The First Stone
and
Joe Cinque's Consolation
, as well as screenplays and feature journalism. She won the inaugural Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2006. She is a frequent contributor to the
Monthly
, and her most recent book is
This House of Grief
, which won the 2015 Ned Kelly Award for Best True Crime book.

Rebecca Giggs
writes about ecology and environmental imagination, animals, landscape, politics and memory. Her essays and reviews have appeared in
Aeon
,
Overland
,
Meanjin
, and
Australian Book Review
, while her stories have also been widely published and anthologised. Her first book is forthcoming from Scribe.

Ashley Hay
's most recent novel,
The Railwayman's Wife
, won the Colin Roderick Award and the New South Wales Premier's Prize People's Choice Award. Her earlier books include
The Body in the Clouds
and
Gum: The Story of Eucalypts and Their Champions
. She writes regularly for publications including
Griffith Review
and the
Monthly
, and edited
Best Australian Science Writing 2014
. She travelled to the Abrolhos ahead of Geraldton's Big Sky Readers' and Writers' Festival.

Karen Hitchcock
is a doctor and writer. She writes a regular column for the
Monthly
, and is the author of a collection of short fiction,
Little White Slips
, and the Quarterly Essay
Dear Life: On Caring for the Elderly
.

Anna Krien
is the author of
Night Games: Sex, Power and Sport
,
Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania's Forests
and the Quarterly Essay
Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals
. Anna's work has been published in the
Monthly
, the
Age
, the
Big Issue
,
The Best Australian Essays
,
The Best Australian Stories
,
Griffith Review
,
Colors
,
Frankie
and
Dazed & Confused.

Matthew Lamb
is founding editor of
Review of Australian Fiction
, and editor of
Island
. He lives in Tasmania.

Mungo MacCallum
has been a journalist and commentator for more than fifty years. He was based in the Canberra press gallery from 1969 until 1988, and covered the rise and fall of Malcolm Fraser in the process. He is the author of thirteen books, including
The Good, the Bad and the Unlikely: Australia's Prime Ministers
(2014).

Drusilla Modjeska
's books include
Exiles at Home
(1981),
Poppy
(1990),
The Orchard
(1994) and
Stravinsky's Lunch
(1999), all of which won major Australian literary awards.
The Mountain
(2012) was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award. Her most recent book, a memoir, is
Second Half First
(2015). She is the founder of SEAM Fund, which supports literacy in remote Papua New Guinea.

Mark Mordue
is a writer, journalist and poet based on the New South Wales south coast. He was winner of the Pascall Prize for Australian Critic of the Year in 2010. His publications include the travel memoir
Dastgah: Diary of a Headtrip
(2001) and the poetry folio
Things That Year
(2014).

Noel Pearson
is a lawyer, activist and founder of the Cape York Partnership. He has published many essays and newspaper articles, as well as the book
Up From the Mission
(2009) and two Quarterly Essays: the acclaimed
Radical Hope: Education and Equality in Australia
(2009) and
A Rightful Place: Race, Recognition and a More Complete Commonwealth
(2014).

Known as much for youthful scandal as for books, South Australian-born
DBC Pierre
was an artist before writing his first novel in 2001. His debut,
Vernon God Little
, became the first book to win both a Booker and a Whitbread prize, and went on to be published in forty-three territories.

Felicity Plunkett
is a poet and critic. She is the author of
Vanishing Point
(2009) and
Seastrands
(2011), and the editor of
Thirty Australian Poets
(2011). Since 2010 she has been Poetry Editor with University of Queensland Press.

Stephen Romei
is a writer, editor and critic. He is literary editor and film critic for the
Australian
.

Nicolas Rothwell
was educated in European schools and was a classical scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, before becoming a foreign correspondent. He is the author of
Heaven & Earth
,
Wings of the Kite-Hawk
,
Another Country
,
The Red Highway
and
Journeys to the Interior
.

Guy Rundle
is correspondent at large for
Crikey.com.au
, Australia's independent online daily. His most recent books are
Inland Empire: America at the End of the Obama Era
, and
A Revolution in the Making: 3-D Printing, Robots and the Future
. At various times he has been a stage writer (for Max Gillies), a TV producer (don't ask) and editor of
Arena
.

Christian Ryan
is the author of
Golden Boy
and the essay/photographic collections
Rock Country
and
Australia: Story of a Cricket Country
. His recent essays include ‘Two Thursdays', ‘13th Man', ‘The Wow and the Sheesh' and ‘Man Walks Into a Bar, Watches Afghanistan'. He is a former editor of the
Monthly
.

Sebastian Smee
is the
Boston Globe
's art critic. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2011 and was runner-up in 2008. He was national art critic for the
Australian
from 2004 to 2008, and is the author of five books on Lucian Freud, as well as the forthcoming
The Art of Rivalry
.

Jeff Sparrow
is a writer, editor and broadcaster. He's the author of a number of books, including
Money Shot: A Journey into Porn and Censorship
,
Killing: Misadventures in Violence
and
Communism: A Love Story
.

Kirsten Tranter
is the author of the novels
A Common Loss
and
The Legacy
, and a co-founder of the Stella Prize. Her short fiction appears in
The Best Australian Stories 2014
,
Island
and numerous anthologies, and her third novel,
Hold
, is forthcoming in 2016.

Maria Tumarkin
writes books (three to date, fourth on the way), reviews, pieces for performance and essays; she collaborates with visual artists, psychologists and public historians. Her work has been published, performed, carved into dockside tiles and set to music.

David Walsh
is the founder of the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart and the author of
A Bone of Fact
.

Nadia Wheatley
's books include
The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift
and
Australians All: A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology
. Her journey to Belsen is part of a much wider exploration of her parents' work with Displaced Persons in post-war Germany.

Tim Winton
has published twenty-six books for adults and children, and his work has been translated into twenty-eight languages. Since his first novel,
An Open Swimmer
, won the Australian Vogel Award in 1981, he has won the Miles Franklin Award four times (for
Shallows
,
Cloudstreet
,
Dirt Music
and
Breath
), and has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (for
The Riders
and
Dirt Music
). He lives in Western Australia.