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Cheryl M. Taylor Cheryl M. Taylor i(A12258 works by) (a.k.a. Cheryl Madeline Taylor)
Also writes as: Cheryl Frost
Born: Established: 1945 ;
Gender: Female
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1 The Genesis of Thea Astley's Multiple Effects of Rainshadow Cheryl M. Taylor , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 21 no. 1 2021;

'A work of traditional scholarship rather than of literary criticism, this essay discusses the Thea Astley novel that relies most heavily on sources, including black and white histories, biographies, language dictionaries, and news reports. It demonstrates the obscurity and diversity of the sources on which Astley drew, and the creativity of her responses to their political, religious and racial assumptions. It seeks to understand something of Astley's creative processes, and to define their limits.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Thea Astley’s An Item from the Late News : A Fictional Fifth Gospel Cheryl M. Taylor , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 29 October vol. 35 no. 2 2020;

'Commentators have been quick to recognise Wafer, Item’s protagonist, as a Christ-figure, and to discuss aspects of what Roslynn Haynes perceived to be a ‘plethora of religious and universal imagery’. Another critical stream has focused on aspects of the novel’s feminism that oppose the masculinist industrial complex. This article contends that an ambiguous exploration of Christian faith and hope, conducted in a context of profound human suffering and moral failure, is central to An Item from the Late News.

'Wafer’s story offers eccentric and disorderly parallels to episodes in the Gospels before climaxing with a brutality comparable to the crucifixion. Yet the aftermath, an unrealised resurrection, connotes agnosticism. Wafer and his female ‘disciples’ Gabby and Emmie are eccentric renditions of Gospel figures who reflect their originals more closely than previous commentary has acknowledged. Above all, Item debates Christian faith through dense clusters of figures that surface throughout the text. They include Christmas; circles in place and time; the moon and the communion wafer; fire and light; darkness, hell and horned devils; Wafer’s sapphire; nakedness; and nothingness. Some clusters, notably circles with their connotations of infinity, make the transition into metaphysics. In sum, events, characterisation and figures uphold Astley’s claim, in a private letter, that she wrote An Item from the Late News ‘with a longing for Christian ideals’.' (Publication abstract)

1 ‘To My Brother’ : Gay Love and Sex in Thea Astley’s Novels and Stories Cheryl M. Taylor , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , December vol. 26 no. 2 2019; (p. 269-284)

'Beginning as early as A Descant for Gossips (1960), gay men and gay love come and go in Thea Astley’s prose oeuvre. The responses that these characters and this topic invite shift with point of view and under the impact of varied themes. Astley’s treatment refuses to be contained, either by traditional Catholic doctrines about sex or by Australia’s delay in decriminalising homosexual acts. Driven by love for her gay older brother Philip, whose death from cancer corresponded with her final allusions to gay love in The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow (1996), Astley’s only constant message on this, as on other topics, is humans’ responsibility to treat each other with kindness. This essay draws on Karen Lamb’s biography and on writings and reminiscences by Philip Astley’s family and fellow Jesuits to reveal his significance as his sister sought to resolve through her fiction the conflict between an inculcated Catholic idolisation of purity and her own hard-won understanding and acceptance of gay men.' (Publication abstract)

1 Sylvia Martin. Ink in Her Veins : The Troubled Life of Aileen Palmer Cheryl M. Taylor , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 17 no. 2 2018;

'This book’s title invites readers to respond to the life of the elder daughter of Vance and Nettie Palmer as one of sadness and struggle. Indeed, emotional deprivation and unrealised creativity are recurring themes. Yet a further dimension, that of heroism, emerges as the narrative reveals Aileen Palmer to have been a woman of exceptional courage, strength and intellectual gifts. Born on 6 April 1915, she joined the Communist Party of Australia at seventeen and for two yearsin her early twenties fought as an interpreter and hospital organiser for the British Medical Unit and the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. She later declared: ‘Spain stands out in my own life like a beacon-light’ (qtd. Martin 279). From 1940 to 1943 she continued the fight against fascism by serving as an ambulance driver in the London Blitz. A widely recognised outcome of World War II was a temporary loosening of gender restrictions in Western countries. Even so, Aileen succeeded in living out adventures and friendships—and in dealing with frightful realities—that were denied to most Australian girls and women of her generation. Despite the miseries and tumults that afflicted her after her return to Australia in September 1945, Aileen Palmer’s life should inspire as much celebration as regret.' (Introduction)

1 "It Fits Where It Touches": Ronald McKie's Fiction and 1970s Feminism Cheryl M. Taylor , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 31 no. 1 2017; (p. 206-220)

'[...]McKie's portrait of Mrs. T. J. is animated by an interest in women's inner lives seen also in The Mango Tree. [...]in a turnaround of Tarom's belated discovery of Colonel Wade's false military pretenses, the end of The Crushing affirms the warrior identity as Mrs. T. J.'s essence. [...]the deepest truth of Mrs. T. J.'s fancy dress is that despite, or even because of, her absurdities, she is Tarom's queen.'  (Publication abstract)

1 I Really Wanted to Write Novels That Are Poems : The Multiple Effects of Poetry in Thea Astley's Fiction Cheryl M. Taylor , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 77 no. 3 2017; (p. 40-61)

In this essay, Cheryl Taylor writes about the poetry of novelist Thea Astley.

1 W/rites of Passion: Thea Astley's Sunshine Coast Transition from Poetry to Fiction Cheryl M. Taylor , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , December vol. 24 no. 2 2017; (p. 271-281)

'During 1947 and 1948, Thea Astley's life changed in ways that permanently affected her writing. In August 1947, she obtained a transfer to Imbil State School, west of Noosa. In November she re-sat failed University of Queensland exams in economics and history, and graduated with a BA in the following April. In January 1948, Astley took up a secondary teaching post at Pomona Rural High. On 27 August, she married Jack Gregson at the Gympie Registry Office. She transferred to Brisbane for the remainder of 1948, and early in the New Year moved with her husband to Sydney. This article contrasts poetry about love and place that Astley wrote during these transition years with the themes and tone of her novel, A Descant for Gossips, published in 1960 and set in Pomona (‘Gungee’) and its environs. Dedicated ‘To John’, Astley's love poems display a passionate lyricism and a commitment that, though usually nervous and conditional, encompasses moments of settled happiness and clarity. In Descant, by contrast, moments of fulfilment in the love affair of teachers Helen Striebel and Robert Moller are suffused with guilt. Similarly, Astley's youthful response in her poetry to the beauty of the ranges and the coast collapses a decade later in Descant into a dystopic rendition of Gungee as a town that punishes defiance and crucifies difference. The article concludes by speculating about causes for the transformation.' (Abstract)

1 7 y separately published work icon Thea Astley : Selected Poems Thea Astley , Cheryl M. Taylor (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2017 11475738 2017 selected work poetry

'The first published collection of poetry by Australian literary legend Thea Astley

'Thea Astley won multiple prizes for her fiction, including four Miles Franklin Awards. However, her earliest ambition was to write poetry. It remained her private passion throughout her student days into adulthood.

'This exciting volume brings together for the first time many poems that have never been seen or published. It traces Astley’s development as a writer as she evokes wartime Brisbane, her fascination with the natural landscape and her encounters with small-town life.

'Thea Astley: Selected Poems provides admirers of Astley’s fiction with unprecedented insight into an Australian literary legend.' (Publication summary)

1 Late Retrospectives on Twentieth-Century Catastrophes–the Novels of Ronald McKie Cheryl M. Taylor , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 14 no. 5 2014;

'This essay examines the representation of early twentieth-century Australia in three novels, The Mango Tree, The Crushing, and Bitter Bread, which were published in the1970s by the well-known journalist Ronald McKie. The novels make the catastrophes of World War I and the Great Depression, and the frenzies of the intervening Jazz Age palatable and engaging for a later, comparatively comfortable Australian readership. They seek further to reconcile readers with the pain of living by promoting ethics of courage, kindness and decency. The novels assume and defend a central Anglo-Celtic identity for Australians. While they reject English cultural and political control, they value the input of Continental European and Asian immigrants. Living Aboriginal people are a notable absence from all three novels, but The Mango Tree seeks to appropriate Aboriginal feeling for country for the native-born descendants of settlers. Through comic-satiric depictions of life in rural Queensland communities McKie’s fiction warns of the dangers of insularity for the nation as a whole.' (Publication abstract)

1 Staking a Claim : Eight Mt Isa Novels Cheryl M. Taylor , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , June vol. 20 no. 1 2013; (p. 96-109)
'Mt Isa's story is an Australian foundation epic. Only heroic struggle could have dug the mine and built the city a thousand kilometres from the nearest deepwater port, in a scorched red landscape sparsely dotted with spinifex and eucalypts. In Mines in the spinifex (1970), Geoffrey Blainey celebrates the fortitude of the prospectors and entrepreneurs who overcame these obstacles to found what he calls ‘the greatest Australian mine of the [twentieth] century’ (1970: 64).' (Publication abstract)
1 Tropical Flowers : Romancing North Queensland in Early Female Fiction and Poetry: Powerpoint Presentation Cheryl M. Taylor , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Etropic : Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics , no. 9 2010;
1 Tropical Flowers : Romancing North Queensland in Early Female Fiction and Poetry Cheryl M. Taylor , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: LiNQ , vol. 36 no. 2009; (p. 135-160)
Cheryl Taylor discusses seven female writers who were inspired by and wrote about North Queensland. She concludes, in part, that 'the flower authors see tropical Queensland as a place of liberation for women.... where young female characters assert an identity freed from parental or marital restrictions'.
1 'This Fiction It Don't Go Away': Narrative As an Index to Palm Island's Past and Present Cheryl M. Taylor , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Queensland Review , vol. 16 no. 1 2009; (p. 35-67)
This article describes an abundant tradition of Palm Island narrrative, from early "whitewash" travelogues, to a previously unrecognised place-based corpus of black writing that includes the work of Boori Pryor. It discusses the presentation of Palm Island in poetry and in novels by Thea Astley and Elizabeth O'Conner.
1 Untitled Cheryl M. Taylor , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 8 2008; (p. 152-155)

— Review of The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007 anthology criticism
1 Warm Words : North Queensland Writing Cheryl M. Taylor , Elizabeth Perkins , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: By the Book : A Literary History of Queensland 2007; (p. 213-255; notes 349-358)
1 'What Would Civilisation Be without a Gun?' The Resistant Land in Sarah Campion's Burdekin Trilogy Cheryl M. Taylor , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 22 no. 4 2006; (p. 471-481)
1 Offshore Vistas Cheryl M. Taylor , 2005 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 274 2005; (p. 54-55)

— Review of The Tao of Shepherding John Donnelly , 2004 single work novel ; The Lost Tribe Jane Downing , 2005 single work novel
1 An Excellent Teacher and Lover of Literature : Elizabeth May Perkins O.A.M. Cheryl M. Taylor , 2005 single work obituary (for Elizabeth Perkins )
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 22 no. 1 2005; (p. 128-129)
1 y separately published work icon Writers of Tropical Queensland Cheryl M. Taylor , AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource , 2005 Z1183583 2005 single work criticism
1 A Life of Service to Students and the Arts : Associate Professor Elizabeth May Perkins OAM Cheryl M. Taylor , 2004 single work obituary (for Elizabeth Perkins )
— Appears in: LiNQ , May vol. 31 no. 1 2004; (p. 11-12)
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