PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Georgia Blain published novels for adults and young adults, essays, short stories, and a memoir. Her first novel was the bestselling Closed for Winter, which was made into a feature film. Her books have been shortlisted for numerous awards including the NSW, Victorian, and SA Premiers' Literary Awards, the ALS Gold Medal, the Stella Prize, and the Nita B. Kibble Award for her memoir Births Deaths Marriages. Georgia's works include The Secret Lives of Men, Too Close to Home, and the YA novel Darkwater. In 2016, Georgia published Between a Wolf and a Dog and the YA novel Special (Penguin Random House Australia). Between a Wolf and a Dog was shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize, and was awarded the 2017 Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction and the 2016 University of Queensland Fiction Book Award. Georgia passed away in December 2016.
Praise for Between a Wolf and a Dog: ‘Blain just gets better and better. The clarity, warmth and precision of Between a Wolf and a Dog brings to mind the formal beauty of an exquisitely cut gemstone. Blain looks at the big questions — mortality, grief, forgiveness — through the lens of one family’s everyday struggle to love each other. This portrait of marriage and work, of sisterhood, mothers, and daughters is resolute and clear-eyed; so commanding and beautifully written it made me cry.’ -- Charlotte Wood, author of <em>The Natural Way of Things</em> Praise for Between a Wolf and a Dog: ‘Between a Wolf and a Dog is an elegantly told story describing the ambiguities within human relationships. Each evening, when my children slept, I would enter the world of this book — coming to know a flawed, courageous, and creative family of characters, as they struggled to be good, to be whole, and finally, to let go.’ -- Sofie Laguna, author of <em>The Eye of the Sheep</em> Praise for Between a Wolf and a Dog: ‘Blain is a writer of such lucidity and strength that her characters speak, undeniably, for themselves … What make it possible to contain tragedy in words, so that the reader enters into the experience and passes through it, cleansed? The Greek playwrights had their own answers to this question; but the question, I suspect, is far older than their version of it. Each generation of authors must find the right words for writing about death. Part of the reason Between a Wolf and a Dog succeeds so well is that everything in the novel is heartfelt without being in the least sentimental.’ -- Dorothy Johnston * Sydney Morning Herald * Praise for Museum of Words: ‘Museum of Words is not a memoir of dying, although it is about illness and treatment, and the impossibility of saying goodbye. It moves between its subjects, using the writer’s illness reflexively, leading into description of the things most important to her … [A] fine book that looks chaos directly in the face and attempts to record it.’ -- Tegan Bennett Daylight * Sydney Morning Herald * Praise for Museum of Words: ‘A fine short memoir that looks both inward and outward to tell a patchwork story of four women and their shifting relationships with one another and with words, their medium for living … She does not try to make sense of what was happening and does not rail against fate’s cruelty. She does not argue for voluntary euthanasia and even notes that her mother, once an advocate, went quiet on the subject after she became ill. Blain simply continues to write, her voice faltering only occasionally, until her final sentence.’ -- Susan Wyndham * Weekend Australian * Praise for Museum of Words: ‘A powerful meditation on the power of language and writing … wise, tender, and heart-rending.’ -- Nicole Abadee * The Australian Financial Review Magazine * Praise for The Secret Lives of Men: ‘Told with subtlety, tenderness and skill, The Secret Lives of Men displays Georgia Blain’s superb ability to convey both the joys and struggles of daily life and its impact on each of us. Blain is a gifted writer: through her storytelling we come to know ourselves better.’ -- Tony Birch, author of <em>Ghost River</em> Praise for The Secret Lives of Men: ‘There's a quiet, understated quality to her prose, an introspection in her narrative that makes her words glow dully with slow-burning intensity … Relationships in all their combinations and permutations are skilfully dissected by an author with a keen eye and a firm grasp.’ -- Thuy On * The Age * Praise for The Secret Lives of Men: ‘It is the mark of a superior book of short stories when each contribution is able to stand in its own bold outline, yet also go to make something more and whole. This is such a book … It is a mature work from an author with a special sensibility and a comprehending, humane outlook.’ -- Judges' comments, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2014
