Joanne Horniman Joanne Horniman i(A1759 works by)
Born: Established: 1951 Murwillumbah, Murwillumbah area, Far Northeast NSW, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Joanne Horniman grew up in a country town in northern New South Wales. She completed an arts degree in Sydney, and has a graduate diploma in infants/primary education from the Armidale College of Advanced Education. From 1973 to 1977 Horniman was assistant editor of the NSW Department of Education's School Magazine. She has also worked as an adult literacy teacher at TAFE, and was a part-time lecturer in children's literature at Southern Cross University. In 1978 she married Tony Chinnery, a potter; they have two sons. After moving back to the north coast with her family, Horniman produced a series of mostly satirical posters that are now in the collection of the Australian National Gallery.

Horniman has received a number of awards for her fiction for children and young people. She made these comments on her books, her background and on the significance of place:

'All my books are about the interaction of people and animals with the natural world, not in the usual adventurous sense but in a more spiritual way. We are all connected with forces that we are only aware of some of the time, which is probably why people like to get out and experience nature when they have a chance to get away from their workaday lives. Living away from big cities has been enormously sustaining for me and has led to the kind of books I write.' (From Contemporary Authors)

And on her young adult novel Mahalia, set in the northern NSW country area where she has lived most of her life: 'A place or character can give me the impetus to start writing; with Mahalia it was the idea of a young man looking after his baby. I imagined how he would feel if he were to lose her. There's a point in the writing when the story suddenly becomes real and inevitable, not just something you're playing with. It was only after I realised where he was going to live that his story came to life for me.
'I grew up in a country town above a big old grocery store full of nooks and crannies. I used to go off on my own and spend hours reading the books belonging to my much older brother and sister. When I moved to Sydney I lived for a while in a shop-front house in Glebe, and that place was also dark and mysterious' (from author profile by Allen & Unwin, http://www.allen-unwin.com.au/authors/apHornim.asp ).

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon About a Girl Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2010 Z1661518 2010 single work novel young adult (taught in 1 units)

'"I remember when we lay together for the first time and I closed my eyes and felt the crackle of her dark hair between my fingers. She was all warmth and sparking light. When I was with her, my skin sighed that the centre of the world was precisely here."

'Anna is afraid she must be unlovable - until she meets Flynn. Together, the girls swim, eat banana cake, laugh and love. Some days Flynn is unreachable; other days she's at Anna's door - but when Anna discovers Flynn's secret, she wonders if she knows her at all.

'A beautifully crafted novel by award-winning author Joanne Horniman that explores the tension between the tender moments that pull people together and the secrets that push them apart.' (From the publisher's website.)

2011 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adults' Fiction
2011 shortlisted CBCA Book of the Year Awards Book of the Year: Older Readers
y separately published work icon My Candlelight Novel Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2008 Z1517284 2008 single work novel young adult 'It will be about birth and death and love and sex, and I will tell it very quiet and slow, so if you want big bangs of action and excitement it's best you stop reading right now. I will make it something after my own heart, tender and dark, a little candlelight novel, started this late summer night as my lover and baby daughter sleep in the big bed in the corner, and my sister Kate leans thoughtful and sleepless against the railing of the dark verandah outside ... So writes Sophie O'Farrell, 22 year-old single mother, university student, reader, writer. She pushes her baby through the streets of Lismore, remembering, meeting people, observing the beauty and ugliness of everyday life, falling in love, and finally, telling all.'--Provided by publisher.
2009 longlisted Inky Awards Gold Inky
2009 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Best Young Adult Book
2009 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
y separately published work icon Secret Scribbled Notebooks Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2004 Z1141800 2004 single work novel young adult Kate has three notebooks, red, yellow and blue, in which she records her life. Through reading, writing, living and learning to love, she discovers things about herself that she never expected. (Source: Trove)
2005 winner Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Best Young Adult Book
2005 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Writing for Young Adults
2005 shortlisted The Courier-Mail Book of the Year Award
2005 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
2005 shortlisted CBCA Book of the Year Awards Book of the Year: Older Readers
Last amended 11 Nov 2009 14:49:28
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