Kathryn Heyman
Kathryn Heyman is an Australian writer of novels and plays. She is the director of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program[1] and Fiction Program Director of Faber Writing Academy.[2]
Career
Born in New South Wales, Australia, she was brought up in Lake Macquarie with her four siblings.[3][4]
As a young adult Heyman spent many years in the United Kingdom, where she studied under the Caribbean poet E.A. Markham, and where she was first published.[5]
Heyman is the author of six novels: The Breaking (1997), Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (1999), The Accomplice (2003) Captain Starlight's Apprentice (2006) Floodline (2013) and Storm and Grace (2017)[6] She is also a playwright for theatre and radio and has held a number of creative writing fellowships in the UK and Australia. Her short stories have appeared in a number of collections and also on radio.
Heyman's first novel, The Breaking, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and shortlisted for the Scottish Writer of the Year Award.[7] Her third, The Accomplice, won an Arts Council England Writer's Award and was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. The Accomplice is a fictional account of the wreck of the Dutch flagship the Batavia off the Australian coast in the 17th century. As a meditation on complicity with evil it has been compared with the work of Joseph Conrad and William Golding.[8]
Her fourth novel, Captain Starlight's Apprentice, features a woman bushranger, the birth (and near death) of the Australian film industry, and a British migrant to Australia who undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Nita Kibble Literary Award.
Floodline, published 2013, is set during the aftermath of a great flood, and has been compared with the writing of Cormac McCarthy.[9] Heyman's writing has also been compared with that of Angela Carter,[10] David Malouf,[11] Peter Carey and Kate Grenville.[12]
Heyman's sixth novel Storm & Grace, a psychological thriller about freediving, deals with violence against women and was published by Allen & Unwin in February 2017.[13]
Heyman's work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, and a five-part dramatic adaptation of Captain Starlight's Apprentice was broadcast on Woman's Hour in April 2007.[14] In 2013 she delivered the NSW Premier's Literary Awards keynote address.[15]
Books
- The Breaking. Phoenix House (1997); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743314944
- Keep Your Hands on the Wheel. Phoenix House (1999); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743315354
- The Accomplice. Hodder Headline (2003); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743314357
- Captain Starlight's Apprentice. Hodder Headline (2006); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743313978
- Floodline. Allen & Unwin (2013) ISBN 9781743312797
- Storm & Grace. Allen & Unwin (2017) ISBN 9781743313633
- Fury. Allen & Unwin (2021) ISBN 9781760529376
Plays
- The Princess Who Couldn't Fly (and a Word or Two About the Crippled King) (1990)
- Unreal (1991)
- Sex, Lies and Model Aeroplanes (1991) with David Lennie and Paul Tolton
- Exodus (1993) with David Purveur
- Dancing on the Word (1993)
- That's The Way to Do It (1994) with Jo Enright
Works for BBC Radio
- Far Country (2002), starring Kerry Fox
- Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (2003), starring Kerry Fox
- Moonlight's Boy (2005)
- Closing Time (2005), (BBC short)
- Captain Starlight's Apprentice (2007)
Awards
- Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Nonfiction Award shortlist, 2022 (Fury)[16]
- Australia Council Established Writers New Work Grant 2006 – 2008[17]
- Kibble Prize shortlist, (Captain Starlight's Apprentice)[18]
- Arts Council of England Writer's Award, (The Accomplice)[19]
- Western Australian Premier's Book Awards shortlist, (The Accomplice)[20]
- Wingate Scholarship, (The Accomplice)[21]
- Southern Arts Writers Award (Keep Your Hands on the Wheel)[22]
- Orange Prize longlist, (The Breaking)[23]
- Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year shortlist, (The Breaking)[24]
- Hallam Poetry Prize, 1996[25]
References
- ^ Author profile, Sydney Writers Festival 2017.
- ^ Faber Writing Academy, Writing a Novel, 2015.
- ^ Jodie Minus, "The Face: Kathryn Heyman", Weekend Australian, 17–18 May 2003, Review, p. R3.
- ^ Kelsey-Sugg, Anna & Zajac, Bec, "When Kathryn Heyman was traumatised and needing to escape, a fishing trawler offered her the hope of salvation", ABC Radio National, 25 May 2012.
- ^ Heyman, "There's no place like home", Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, no. 15 July 2006, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Allen & Unwin, publisher
- ^ McMillan,Joyce, A familiar fear and loathing, [1]Glasgow Herald Friday 21 November 1997
- ^ Chevalier, Tracey, et al., "Summer Reading", The Guardian, 2003.
- ^ Clarke, Stella, "City's souls lost and saved in the flood", The Australian, 14 September 2013.
- ^ Sanders, Kate, The Times 27 May 2006.
- ^ Duncan, Shirley J. Paolini, "Outlaw odyssey.(Captain Starlight's Apprentice) (Book review)", Antipodes, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 89(2).
- ^ White, Judith, The Bulletin, 30 May 2006.
- ^ Louise Swinn, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 2017.
- ^ Captain Starlight's Apprentice, BBC – Woman's Hour Drama.
- ^ University of Newcastle
- ^ "2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 19 January 2022. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
- ^ "Literature Board Assessment Meeting Report" (PDF). Australia Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "History of Shortlisted Authors" (PDF). Kibble Literary Awards. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Literary Cash Boost for Authors". BBC News. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "2003 Shortlist". Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Archive. State Library of Western Australia.
- ^ "Record of Wingate Scholars 1988–2011" (PDF). Wingate Scholarships Anniversary Archive. Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Kathryn Heyman". Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Scheme. Royal Literary Fund. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Longlist 1998". Women's Prize for Fiction. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Mother & Child Reunion". The Scotsman. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
- ^ "Kathryn Heyman". Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Scheme. Royal Literary Fund. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
External links
- Official website
- Australian Writers Mentoring Program
- Author page at Allen & Unwin, Australian publisher.
- Kathryn Heyman's Occasional Blog
- Short summary of Floodline by Adelaide Writers' Week director Laura Kroetsch