Cirrus@Austlit

'I am honoured and delighted to have been invited, along with Associate Professor Jessica Gildersleeve, to edit this special issue of Queensland Review on the work of Thea Astley. I owe Jessica heartfelt thanks for her hard work and easy collegiality.

'Fifteen years since Astley’s death, the appearance of this collection of essays marks the development of a growing body of biographical and critical studies of her work. The essays complement Karen Lamb’s 2015 biography, Inventing Her Own Weather, and my critical monograph, The Fiction of Thea Astley (2016), as well as the collection of essays edited by myself and Paul Genoni, Thea Astley’s Fictional Worlds (2006). Most recently, Thea Astley: Selected Poems appeared in 2017, edited by Cheryl Taylor (who has an essay in this issue) and published by the University of Queensland Press (Astley’s publisher for many years).' (Susan Sheridan Introduction)