Carmel Bird
Author of The Penguin Century of Australian Stories
About the Author
Carmel Bird is an Australian author and former teacher, born and raised in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1940. She taught fiction writing at the university level at Melbourne, Deakin, Latrobe, Monash, Swinburne and RMIT Universities. She has been writing since 1976 and is the author of novels, short show more story collections, nonfiction, children's books, and has edited anthologies. Dimitra was her first collection and was published in 1981 and My Hearts are Your Hearts was published in 2015. Cherry Ripe was her first novel, published in 1985, and Family Skeleton, published in 2016, is her most recent. Dear Writer, published in 1988, was her first nonfiction book and Fair Game was published in 2015. She wrote two children's books, The Mouth (1996) and The Cassowary's Quiz (1998). The Writing on the Wall: Collection of Poetry and Prose by Women (1985) was her first work as an editor, and The Penguin Century of Australian Stories was published in 2000. She has written book reviews for the Australian Book Review. Her awards include winning the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal at the Mildura Writer's Festival (2001) and in 2016, winning the Patrick White Literary Award. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Samantha Everton
Series
Works by Carmel Bird
A Telephone Call for Genevieve Snow 2 copies
AUSTRALIAN STORIES PA 1 copy
Conservatory 1 copy
Cave Amantem 1 copy
Associated Works
She's Fantastical: The First Anthology of Australian Women's Speculative Fiction, Magical Realism and Fantasy (1995) — Contributor — 34 copies, 1 review
Regarding Jane Eyre: Writers Respond to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1997) — Contributor — 17 copies
Goodbye to Romance: Stories by New Zealand and Australian Women Writers, 1930-1988 (1989) — Contributor — 10 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Bird, Carmel
- Birthdate
- 1940-08-30
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- Australia
- Birthplace
- Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
- Places of residence
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Tasmania, Australia - Education
- University of Tasmania
- Occupations
- novelist
short-story writer
columnist
editor
creative writing teacher - Agent
- Jenny Darling and Associates
Members
Reviews
Reading this book was such a "non-event" that I wouldn't even waste time reviewing it. I have given it one star for the cover !
Marsali Swift and her husband William have returned to Melbourne after what they hoped would be a permanent retirement tree change to the quaint property of Listowel, in the Victorian Goldfields township of Muckleton. They hoped for a quiet life full of rural splendour, delightful book clubs and country charm. Instead they become victims of a theft, a neighbour goes missing - presumed murdered, and they uncover disturbing facts about their little town’s violent past.
The style of writing is somewhat unusual, especially for the genre, and it may not appeal to all readers. The novel is set out in a journal/memoir style and is a combination of recollections of the events interspersed with random thoughts and observations relating to art, history, politics, the environment, literature and science. It’s kind of like being stuck next to Great Aunt Clara at a wedding after she’s had too many glasses of sherry. It is charming, confusing, informative and irritating all at the same time. Part of you want to leave the table, and part of you can’t drag yourself away.
The style of the novel allows for extensive descriptions of character and places. One can readily visualise Muckleton, its quaint streets and landmarks and eclectic mix of locals. It is worth pushing through to the end, even if the writing doesn’t set readily with you.
“Field of Dreams” by Carmel Bird will either earn a place in your top ten for the year or be left unfinished. Reader’s choice.
I received a free copy of this book through Sisters in Crime - Australia, in exchange for a fair and honest review.… (more)
The style of writing is somewhat unusual, especially for the genre, and it may not appeal to all readers. The novel is set out in a journal/memoir style and is a combination of recollections of the events interspersed with random thoughts and observations relating to art, history, politics, the environment, literature and science. It’s kind of like being stuck next to Great Aunt Clara at a wedding after she’s had too many glasses of sherry. It is charming, confusing, informative and irritating all at the same time. Part of you want to leave the table, and part of you can’t drag yourself away.
The style of the novel allows for extensive descriptions of character and places. One can readily visualise Muckleton, its quaint streets and landmarks and eclectic mix of locals. It is worth pushing through to the end, even if the writing doesn’t set readily with you.
“Field of Dreams” by Carmel Bird will either earn a place in your top ten for the year or be left unfinished. Reader’s choice.
I received a free copy of this book through Sisters in Crime - Australia, in exchange for a fair and honest review.… (more)
I was really looking forward to reading Carmel Bird's latest novel, and I am pleased to say that it does not disappoint!
The voice in this latest novel from one of our best-loved writers is just like one of my dearest friends. Chatty, discursive, and intelligent; knowledgeable about the history of the world and sensitive to its contemporary woes; warm, witty and kind. But reading Field of Poppies is not just like a long, leisurely intimate conversation with someone whose wisdom I treasure, it's also a perfect expression of the zeitgeist. (And if you want any confirmation of that, check out Australia Talks at ABC Online, to see the issues that are bothering other Australians).
The narrator is Marsali Swift, an older woman who is an irrepressible optimist reluctantly coming to terms with unpleasant truths. The 20th century was a dreadful century, but the 21st may even be worse. And there is no hiding from it. Marsali, a retired interior designer, and her husband William, still working part-time as a doctor, made a tree-change to the (fictional) town of Muckleton in Victoria's goldfields region, but the world found them there anyway.
Two events, she tells us right at the beginning, have propelled them back to urban life in the Eureka Tower in Melbourne. Their Muckleton house was robbed while they were on a jaunt to hear La Traviata at the Arts Centre in Melbourne, and a woman called Alice Dooley has vanished. As it happens, most of their eccentric possessions were recovered from the robbery, but Marsali still feels that her rural idyll has been violated. Her sense of security is shattered, partly because she has to face up to the fact that her sense of community is a myth. Robbery isn't just something that happens in the city, and what makes it worse is that in the countryside, it's committed by people that you know.
And while Alice was only an acquaintance, an eccentric divorcée who lived alone in the former matrimonial home and played a very valuable violin in a community musical group, Marsali feels her disappearance keenly. It is a sign that evil has come to Muckleton which in their retirement was meant to be a refuge from the meanness of city life. Marsali (though she's not religious) suggests a prayer vigil, and the community organises it, but Alice's disappearance remains an open wound.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/10/06/field-of-poppies-by-carmel-bird/… (more)
The voice in this latest novel from one of our best-loved writers is just like one of my dearest friends. Chatty, discursive, and intelligent; knowledgeable about the history of the world and sensitive to its contemporary woes; warm, witty and kind. But reading Field of Poppies is not just like a long, leisurely intimate conversation with someone whose wisdom I treasure, it's also a perfect expression of the zeitgeist. (And if you want any confirmation of that, check out Australia Talks at ABC Online, to see the issues that are bothering other Australians).
The narrator is Marsali Swift, an older woman who is an irrepressible optimist reluctantly coming to terms with unpleasant truths. The 20th century was a dreadful century, but the 21st may even be worse. And there is no hiding from it. Marsali, a retired interior designer, and her husband William, still working part-time as a doctor, made a tree-change to the (fictional) town of Muckleton in Victoria's goldfields region, but the world found them there anyway.
Two events, she tells us right at the beginning, have propelled them back to urban life in the Eureka Tower in Melbourne. Their Muckleton house was robbed while they were on a jaunt to hear La Traviata at the Arts Centre in Melbourne, and a woman called Alice Dooley has vanished. As it happens, most of their eccentric possessions were recovered from the robbery, but Marsali still feels that her rural idyll has been violated. Her sense of security is shattered, partly because she has to face up to the fact that her sense of community is a myth. Robbery isn't just something that happens in the city, and what makes it worse is that in the countryside, it's committed by people that you know.
And while Alice was only an acquaintance, an eccentric divorcée who lived alone in the former matrimonial home and played a very valuable violin in a community musical group, Marsali feels her disappearance keenly. It is a sign that evil has come to Muckleton which in their retirement was meant to be a refuge from the meanness of city life. Marsali (though she's not religious) suggests a prayer vigil, and the community organises it, but Alice's disappearance remains an open wound.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/10/06/field-of-poppies-by-carmel-bird/… (more)
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 41
- Also by
- 12
- Members
- 665
- Popularity
- #37,923
- Rating
- 3.4
- Reviews
- 13
- ISBNs
- 89
- Languages
- 1
That is to say,, it's probably perfect any time, but when the ability to concentrate, read and remember is a bit compromised, a book like this is ideal. It doesn't have a plot to be followed, or characters to connect, or a narrative voice to interrogate for reliability. It can be read in short, unconnected bursts of energy for the sheer delight of Carmel Bird's reminiscences and the pleasure of the book's exquisite design.
It's ironic that I'm reading the book with a post-covid brain. Telltale has its origins in the great Covid enchantment — enforced isolation during the pandemic — when the books in the author's own personal library became the catalyst for this memoir. As Australian readers will know, we had strict and lengthy lockdowns in my state, widely supported because we evaded the worst of the virus when it was at its most virulent and the previous federal government had failed to secure adequate vaccination supplies. I'm reading the book now in the wake of being very unwell with the latest variant, but I was unlikely to die from Covid because I've had four vaccinations and the latest antivirals. But the steady rate of deaths each week means that the sense of dread is not entirely vanquished. (And we are not yet allowed out of the house, by law.)
Carmel Bird lives outside Melbourne in a small regional city and here she captures the sense of foreboding that was widely shared:
If you've read any of Carmel Bird's novels, you'll recognise the macabre imagery and the playful gothic style...
I have described Telltale as a memoir, but it's more than that.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/06/04/telltale-reading-writing-remembering-by-carm...… (more)