News & Blog
Read the latest news and bulletins, essays, features, opinions from our bestselling authors. Find out what's being said, debated, and discussed in the world of books and ideas.
Gail Jones’ latest masterpiece is proving to be a must-read for 2011
Grace, my central character in Beneath the Shadows, is particularly special to me. She is the first fully fledged character I ever developed, and finally, ten years after she first came to me, I am thrilled to be introducing her to the wider world. My first image of her was back in 2001, as she woke from a hellish dream to find herself caught in a waking nightmare – her husband vanished and a small...
Banksy’s EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP and Richler’s BARNEY’S VERSION both pick up nominations
While I’ve already worked out the ending of the third and final volume of the Jingera trilogy, I’m still figuring out precisely how to get there. I can tell you when it when it will end though -- in 1971 or 1972. And it will also end in October 2011, which is the date my contract says I must deliver the final volume to Random House Australia. Already I know I'm going to be sad to see the characters...
The film collecting 8 nominations at the 83rd Academy Awards
Rethinking the connection between the day job and fiction writing
by Alison Booth on 27 January 2011
Around a year ago, when Stillwater Creek was published, I wrote a blog on this website claiming that there was no connection between being an economist and being a writer of novels. Now I think I was wrong. Logic, a crucial characteristic of an academic economist’s way of thinking, was helpful in weaving together the various stories in The Indigo Sky. As a very simple example, when working out...
People often say that they can remember precisely what they were doing when certain major or shocking events occurred. Events such as the assassination of John Kennedy. The first man on the moon. The death of Princess Diana. The assassination of John Lennon. A pivotal event that I remember very vividly was the release of the Bringing them Home Report.[1] I first heard about in 1997 when I...
The answer to this question is simple: historical accident. When I signed a two book deal with Random House Australia back in 2009, they stipulated that the second book should be either a sequel or a prequel to Stillwater Creek. I flirted with the idea of a prequel; I'd always fancied writing a novel set in Australia prior to Federation. But was it stretching things too far to view a novel set six...
The Commonwealth Games gold medallist has announced his plans to continue swimming through to the London 2012 Olympics
I think a lot of writers have difficulty answering this sort of question about their work because there are so many layers in most novels. For example, I’ve just finished reading the wonderful book by Rose Tremain, a writer whom I greatly admire, entitled Music and Silence. This is a historical novel set in the years 1629 to 1630 at the Danish court, and it is written from many different perspectives. ...
