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Georgia Blain Georgia Blain i(A11996 works by)
Born: Established: 1964 Sydney, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 9 Dec 2016
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Georgia Blain worked as a copyright lawyer and then as a journalist, before turning to novels.

In 2002, she was elected chair of The Australian Society of Authors. She published eight novels between Candelo (1998) and the two works released in 2016: Special (published in March 2016) and Between a Wolf and a Dog (published in April 2016). Her novels have been shortlisted for the Kibble Award, the Barbara Jefferis Award, the Christina Stead Prize (NSW Premier's Literary Awards), and the Vance Palmer Prize (Victorian Premier's Award): in 2016, Between a Wolf and a Dog won the Queensland Literary Award's Fiction Book Award.

Georgia Blain recounted her diagnosis and treatment for a brain tumour in a weekly column for the The Saturday Paper.

She was the daughter of Anne Deveson and Ellis Blain, who worked for the ABC for forty years, until his retirement in 1974: Ellis Blain died in 1979, and Anne Deveson died three days after her daughter, in December 2016.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2013 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships New Work - Established Writers Fiction

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Museum of Words : A Memoir of Language, Writing and Mortality Brunswick : Scribe , 2017 11523068 2017 single work autobiography

'In late 2015, Georgia Blain was diagnosed with a tumour sitting right in the language centre of her brain. Prior to this, Georgia’s only warning had been a niggling sense that her speech was slightly awry. She ignored it, and on a bright spring day, as she was mowing the lawn, she collapsed on a bed of blossoms, blood frothing at her mouth.

'Waking up to find herself in the back of an ambulance being rushed to hospital, she tries to answer questions, but is unable to speak. After the shock of a bleak prognosis and a long, gruelling treatment schedule, she immediately turns to writing to rebuild her language and herself.

'At the same time, her mother, Anne Deveson, moves into a nursing home with Alzheimer's; weeks earlier, her best friend and mentor had been diagnosed with the same brain tumour. All three of them are writers, with language at the core of their being.

'The Museum of Words is a meditation on writing, reading, first words and last words, picking up thread after thread as it builds on each story to become a much larger narrative. This idiosyncratic and deeply personal memoir is a writer’s take on how language shapes us, and how often we take it for granted — until we are in danger of losing it.' (Publication Summary)

2018 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Autobiography / Biography / Memoir
2018 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Small Publishers' Adult Book of the Year
2018 shortlisted Indie Awards Nonfiction
2018 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Award for Non-Fiction
y separately published work icon Between a Wolf and a Dog Brunswick : Scribe , 2016 8849783 2016 single work novel

'Outside, the rain continues unceasing; silver sheets sluicing down, the trees and shrubs soaking and bedraggled, the earth sodden, puddles overflowing, torrents coursing onwards, as the darkness slowly softens with the dawn.

'Ester is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the woes of the middle class. She spends her days helping others find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed. Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to be able to let herself fall in love again. Meanwhile, April and Lawrence are battling through their own messy lives, and Ester and April’s mother, Hilary, is facing the most significant decision she’ll ever have to make.

'Taking place over one rainy day in Sydney, and rendered with the evocative and powerful prose Blain is known for, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a novel about dissatisfactions and anxieties in the face of relative privilege. Yet it is also a celebration of the best in all of us — our capacity to live in the face of ordinary sorrows, and to draw strength from the transformative power of art. Ultimately, it is a joyous recognition of the profound beauty of being alive.' (Publication summary)

2017 shortlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2017 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2017 shortlisted The Stella Prize
2017 longlisted Indie Awards Fiction
2017 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Fiction
2016 winner Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
y separately published work icon The Secret Lives of Men Brunswick : Scribe , 2013 Z1931528 2013 selected work short story 'In these haunting stories, Georgia Blain explores human nature in all its richness: our motivations, our desires and our shortcomings. The men in these tales frequently linger at the edges - their longings & failures exerting a subterranean pull on the women in their lives.' (Publisher's blurb)
2014 longlisted Kibble Literary Awards Nita Kibble Literary Award
2014 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
Last amended 28 Feb 2017 09:46:06
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