Bendigo Writers’ Festival 2014

ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

We are just back from a most enjoyable weekend at the Bendigo Writers’ festival.  Thanks to our good friend Gloreea who came to dog-sit our dear old Saffy, we set off yesterday at sunrise and arrived in Bendigo in time for our first session – Alex Miller in conversation with Raymond Gaita.  It is always a pleasure to hear Alex speak and this was no exception.

After that The Spouse and I parted company – he went off to indulge his interest in classical antiquity with a session called The Idea of Greece while I went to Hacks and Heroes, which was a silly name for an excellent session with poet and art critic Chris Wallace-Crabbe in conversation with  Sasha Grishin about his new ground-breaking new book Australian Art: A History.  What’s different about this one is that it brings together indigenous art and the rest of the Australian art tradition, instead of segregating them as…

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Vale Liam Davison (1957 – 2014)

ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

It is with a sense of shock and horror that I note the passing of award-winning Australian author Liam Davison.  He and his wife Frankie were victims of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight which was shot down  over disputed territory in Ukraine.

Liam Davison was the author of five novels.  His first, The Velodrome, was shortlisted for the Vogel award in 1987, and was followed by Soundings in 1993, The White Woman a year later in 1994, The Betrayal in 1999, and Floriegium in 2001.  His short story collections include The Shipwreck Party (1988) and Collected Stories (2001) and he was also featured in The Best Australian Stories 2012 and 2013, and The Best Australian Stories – a Ten Year Collection.  He also wrote non-fiction, publishing The Spirit of Rural Australia in 1999.

From Davison’s author page at GoodReads, I have learned that

He was born in Melbourne, where until 2007, he taught…

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