Jessica Anderson
Encyclopedia
Jessica Margaret Queale Anderson (25 September 19169 July 2010) was an Australia
n novelist and short story writer. She won several awards and has been published in Britain and the United States.
to an English mother and an Irish father but brought up in Brisbane
. She left school at 16 and attended the Brisbane Technical College Art School for a year, but moved to Sydney
when she was 18 and was drawn into the bohemian life there. She lived most of her life in Sydney, though she also lived in London for two and a half years.
In an interview with Ellison, Anderson said that she always wanted to be a writer or an artist and that as a child she always wrote—poetry and stories. She also said that she thought about being an architect but that this seemed impossible for a woman in the Brisbane of her youth.
She came from a politically active family and joined the Australian Labor Party
in 1976.
Anderson was twice divorced, her first husband being the artist Ross McGill. She had one daughter, the film and television script-writer, Laura Jones
.
She died in Sydney aged 93 on 9 July 2010.
, Meanjin
and Heat
.
In an interview with Ellison, Anderson said "I was very much, and always have been, preoccupied with people who are strangers in their society." She also said "I am interested in families... They are interesting—you know, the tangle".
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n novelist and short story writer. She won several awards and has been published in Britain and the United States.
Life
Anderson was born in Gayndah, QueenslandGayndah, Queensland
Gayndah is a town located on the Burnett River in Queensland, Australia. It is north of the state capital, Brisbane, and west of the regional city of Maryborough. The Burnett Highway passes through the town. At the 2006 census, Gayndah had a population of 1,745.-History:Exploration of the...
to an English mother and an Irish father but brought up in Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
. She left school at 16 and attended the Brisbane Technical College Art School for a year, but moved to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
when she was 18 and was drawn into the bohemian life there. She lived most of her life in Sydney, though she also lived in London for two and a half years.
In an interview with Ellison, Anderson said that she always wanted to be a writer or an artist and that as a child she always wrote—poetry and stories. She also said that she thought about being an architect but that this seemed impossible for a woman in the Brisbane of her youth.
She came from a politically active family and joined the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
in 1976.
Anderson was twice divorced, her first husband being the artist Ross McGill. She had one daughter, the film and television script-writer, Laura Jones
Laura Jones (screenwriter)
Laura Jones in Australia is a screenwriter.Jones started her career writing teleplays for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Her first feature film credit was the original screenplay for High Tide , directed by Gillian Armstrong and starring Judy Davis...
.
She died in Sydney aged 93 on 9 July 2010.
Writing career
She started writing novels in her early 40s, but had written stories and plays and adapted novels for radio prior to that. Most of these earlier works were published under pseudonyms. In interviews with Ellison and Baker she said that she received more rejections as her writing got better and she moved away from "formula". She was first published in the early 1960s. Since then, she has had several novels published and her short stories have appeared in magazines including The BulletinThe Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
, Meanjin
Meanjin
Meanjin is an Australian literary journal. The name - pronounced Mee-AN-jin - is derived from an Aboriginal word for the land where the city Brisbane is located.It was founded in December 1940, in Brisbane, by Clem Christesen...
and Heat
Heat (magazine)
Heat is a British entertainment magazine published by German company Bauer Media Group. it is one of the biggest selling magazines in the UK, with a regular circulation over half a million. Its mix of celebrity news, gossip and fashion is primarily aimed at women, although not as directly as in...
.
In an interview with Ellison, Anderson said "I was very much, and always have been, preoccupied with people who are strangers in their society." She also said "I am interested in families... They are interesting—you know, the tangle".
Awards and nominations
- 1978: Miles Franklin AwardMiles Franklin AwardThe Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...
for Tirra Lirra by the RiverTirra Lirra By the RiverTirra Lirra by the River is a Miles Franklin Award winning novel by Australian author Jessica Anderson.For Nora Porteous, life is a series of escapes. To escape her tightly knit small-town family, she marries, only to find herself confined again, this time in a stifling Sydney suburb with a... - 1978: Australian Natives AssociationAustralian Natives AssociationThe Australian Natives' Association , a mutual society was founded in Melbourne, Australia in April 1871. The Association played a leading role in the movement for Australian federation in the last 20 years of the 19th century. In 1900 it had a membership of 17,000, mainly in Victoria.The ANA...
Literary Awards for Tirra Lirra by the River - 1980: Miles Franklin AwardMiles Franklin AwardThe Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...
for The Impersonators - 1981: New South Wales Premier's Literary AwardsNew South Wales Premier's Literary AwardsThe New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards were established in 1979 by the New South Wales Premier Neville Wran. Commenting on its purpose, Wran said: "We want the arts to take, and be seen to take, their proper place in our social priorities...
, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for The Impersonators - 1987: The Age Book of the YearThe Age Book of the YearThe Age Book of the Year Awards are annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's The Age newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. Since 1998 they have been presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival...
for Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories
Novels
- An Ordinary Lunacy (1963)
- The Last Man's Head (1970)
- The Commandant (1975)
- Tirra Lirra by the RiverTirra Lirra By the RiverTirra Lirra by the River is a Miles Franklin Award winning novel by Australian author Jessica Anderson.For Nora Porteous, life is a series of escapes. To escape her tightly knit small-town family, she marries, only to find herself confined again, this time in a stifling Sydney suburb with a...
(1978) - The ImpersonatorsThe ImpersonatorsThe Impersonators is a Miles Franklin Award winning novel by Australian author Jessica Anderson. It was published in the United States under the alternative title The Only Daughter....
(1980) (Published in the USA as The Only Daughter) - Taking Shelter (1989)
- One of the Wattle Birds (1994)
Further reading
- Anderson, Jessica (2003) "Starting Too Late" in Meanjin Vol. 61 No. 2, pp. 209–216.
- Barry, Elaine (1992) Fabricating the Self: The Fictions of Jessica Anderson, St Lucia: UQP.
- Bird, Delys (1980) "Review of Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson" in Westerly No. 25, pp. 78–80.
- Blair, Ruth (1987) "Jessica Anderson's Mysteries" in Island Magazine No. 31, pp. 10–15.
- Haynes, Roslyn (1986) "Art as Reflection in Jessica Anderson's Tirra Lirra by the River" in Australian Literary Studies No. 12, pp. 316–23.
- Quigley, Marion (1995) Homesick: Women's Entrapment within the Father's House: A Comparative Study of the fiction of Helen Garner, Beverley Farmer, Jessica Anderson and Elizabeth Harrower PhD Thesis. Monash University.
- Sykes, Alrene (1986) "Jessica Anderson: Arrivals and Places" in Southerly Vol 46 No. 1 pp. 57–71.