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Ryan O'Neill Ryan O'Neill i(A90520 works by)
Born: Established: 1975 Glasgow,
c
Scotland,
c
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 2004
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BiographyHistory

Ryan O'Neill has worked as an English language teacher in Lithuania, China, and Rwanda before settling in Newcastle, Australia, with his family.

His short fiction has appeared in The Best Australian Stories, The Sleepers Almanac, Meanjin, New Australian Stories, Wet Ink, Etchings and Westerly; it has won the Hal Porter and Roland Robinson awards and been shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Steele Rudd Award and the Age Short-Story Prize.

In 2016, he released Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers: this collection of fictional biographies won the Prime Minister's Literary Award and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and the NSW Premier's Literary Award.

He teaches at the University of Newcastle.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2013 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships New Work - Emerging Writers Fiction
2007 winner Roland Robinson Literary Award for A  Speeding Bullet

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Drover's Wives The Drover's Wives : 99 Reinterpretations of Henry Lawson's Australian Classic Sydney : Brio Books , 2018 14171660 2018 selected work prose

'Henry Lawson’s short story ‘The Drover’s Wife’ is an Australian classic that has sparked interpretations on the page, on canvas and on the stage. But it has never been so thoroughly, or hilariously, reimagined as by Ryan O’Neill, remixing and revising Lawson’s masterpiece in 99 different ways.

'You’ll be amused, delighted and surprised by a Year 8 essay, a sporting commentary, a pop song, a Hollywood movie adaptation and many more.

'Inventive and unexpected, this is laugh-out-loud literature from one of Australia’s finest satirists.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2019 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards University of Southern Queensland Australian Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award
2019 shortlisted Russell Prize for Humour Writing
y separately published work icon Their Brilliant Careers : The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers Carlton : Black Inc. , 2016 9580377 2016 selected work short story humour

'In Their Brilliant Careers, Ryan O’Neill has written a hilarious novel in the guise of sixteen biographies of (invented) Australian writers. Meet Rachel Deverall, who discovers the secret female source of the great literature of our time – and pays a terrible price for her discovery. Meet Rand Washington, hugely popular sci-fi author (of Whiteman of Cor) and holder of extreme views on race and gender. Meet Addison Tiller, the master of the bush yarn, “The Chekhov of Coolabah”, who has never travelled outside Sydney.

Their Brilliant Careers is a playful set of stories, linked in many ways, which together form a memorable whole. It is a wonderful comic tapestry of the writing life, and a large-scale parody in which every detail adds to the humour of the overall picture' (publication blurb).

2017 winner Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2017 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2017 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
y separately published work icon The Weight of a Human Heart Collingwood : Black Inc. , 2012 Z1854118 2012 selected work short story

'Sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, this collection turns the rules of storytelling on their head.

'A series of graphs illustrates the disintegration of a marriage, step by excruciating step. A literary stoush - and an affair - play out in the book review section of a national newspaper. The heartbreaking story of a Rwandan boy is hidden within his English exam paper. A young girl learns her mother's disturbing secrets through the broken key on a typewriter.

'Ranging from Australia to Africa to China and back again, The Weight of a Human Heart heralds a fresh new voice in Australian literature.' (From the publisher's website.)

2013 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
2012 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards University of Southern Queensland Australian Short Story Collection – Steele Rudd Award
Last amended 10 Oct 2019 14:16:16
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