Steve Toltz Steve Toltz i(A101407 works by) (a.k.a. Stephen Toltz)
Born: Established: 1972 Wahroonga, Hornsby area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Steve Toltz was educated at Knox Grammar and Killara High School, Sydney. He continued his studies, in video production, at Newcastle University. Toltz has lived in Canada and has worked in various media-related jobs.

In 2009 Toltz was selected as one the Weekend Australian Magazine's ten 'Emerging Leaders' in the 'Culture' category.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

form y separately published work icon Population : 11 ( dir. Helena Brooks et. al. )agent Australia : Jungle Entertainment Factor 30 Films Stan , 2024 27740675 2024 series - publisher film/TV

'When a man goes missing from a tiny outback town, his estranged son is forced to navigate its motley crew of residents to find him.'

Source: Production blurb.

2024 nominated Logie Awards Most Outstanding Comedy Program
y separately published work icon Here Goes Nothing Melbourne : Penguin , 2022 23812809 2022 single work novel fantasy

'The virtuoso new novel from the author of the Booker-shortlisted A Fraction of the Whole.

'Nobody was ever thinking about me. Now that I’m dead, I dwell on this kind of thing a lot.'

'Angus Mooney is in a dark place: the afterlife. His days are spent in aching embarrassment; god, religion, the supernatural – he was wrong about everything. He longs for his audacious, fiery wife, Gracie, but can only watch from the other side as she is seduced by his killer, who has stepped seamlessly into Mooney’s shoes.

'Meanwhile, life after death isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Another pandemic is sweeping the globe; Mooney’s new home is filling up fast, resources are scarce, infrastructure is crumbling, and he has to share an increasingly cramped existence with a group of people still traumatised by their own deaths. And although he should know better, he remains in the grip of the same fear as when he was alive: the opinions of others.

'Narrated with the ironic hindsight afforded by life beyond the mortal plane, Here Goes Nothing is a razor-sharp, hilariously entertaining, insightful and moving meditation on our 21st-century world, and the intricate relationship between love and death.' (Publication summary)

2022 winner 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature The Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize
2023 longlisted Voss Literary Prize
2023 shortlisted Russell Prize for Humour Writing
2022 shortlisted Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction Science Fiction Division Novel
2022 shortlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
y separately published work icon Quicksand Melbourne : Random House Australia , 2015 8222389 2015 single work novel

'The literary event of 2015. Steve Toltz follows his extraordinary debut, the Booker-shortlisted A Fraction of the Whole, with a novel that's just as edgy, hilarious and compelling: Quicksand, at once unmistakeably Toltzean and unlike anything that's come before.

'Aldo has been so relentlessly unlucky – in business, in love, in life – that the universe seems to have taken against him personally. Even Liam, his best friend, describes him as 'a well-known parasite and failure'. Aldo has always faced the future with optimism and despair in equal measure, but this last twist of fate may finally have brought him undone.

'There's hope, but not for Aldo.

'Liam hasn't been doing much better himself: a failed writer with a rocky marriage and a dangerous job he never wanted. But something good may come out of Aldo's lowest point. Liam may finally have found his inspiration. Together, maybe they can turn bad luck into an art form.

'What begins as a document of Aldo's disasters develops into a profound story of love lost, found and betrayed; of freedom and incarceration; of suffering and transcendence; of fate, faith and friendship; of taking risks – in art, work, love and life – and finding inspiration in all the wrong places.

'Quicksand is a fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy that looks contemporary life unblinkingly in the eye. It confirms Steve Toltz as one of our most original and insightful novelists.' (Publication summary)

2017 winner Russell Prize for Humour Writing
2016 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
Last amended 6 Feb 2017 13:12:53
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