Tegan Bennett Daylight Tegan Bennett Daylight i(A2008 works by) (a.k.a. Tegan Bennett)
Also writes as: Tegan Thomas
Born: Established: 1969 Coogee, Randwick area, Sydney Eastern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 The Frank Moorhouse Reading Room : on Literary Generations Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2024 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , September 2024;

'In late 2021, as he moved into assisted care, the Australian writer Frank Moorhouse donated his decades-long collection of anthologies of Australian writing to Western Sydney University’s Writing and Society Research Centre. He died not long after in June 2022. The Frank Moorhouse Reading Room was established as a tribute to his lifelong advocacy on behalf of Australian writers and writing: his work towards fair pay and copyright ownership for all Australian writers, and his commitment to diverse voices, progressive thinking, and social justice. In this essay stream, we invite writers to help us unpack this singular archive, spotlighting the intergenerational concerns and affiliations through which Australian literature is constantly being shaped and reshaped.' (Introduction)

1 3 y separately published work icon Royals Tegan Bennett Daylight , Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2023 25778897 2023 single work novel young adult

'Six teenagers. An empty shopping centre. No Wi-Fi. And … a baby? Acclaimed author Tegan Bennett Daylight’s first novel for young adults reconceives Lord of the Flies for Gen Z.

'What happens when a group of teenagers is stranded indefinitely in a shopping centre, alone? With all the stuff they could possibly want … and a baby? Is it paradise – or hell?

'With no phones and no internet, Shannon and her fellow prisoners are completely disconnected from the outside world… and their online lives. It’s hard to say whether they’ll be driven to delinquency, or – even worse – forced to make friends irl. Will the limitless bubble tea, Maccas, high-end trainers and tech equipment be enough to keep the six teens safe and happy until they can find a way out, or is this all the start of something more sinister?

'Acclaimed author Tegan Bennett Daylight’s first novel for young adults reconceives Lord of the Flies for Gen Z, and in a suspenseful, character-driven and enthralling story, reveals that surviving in isolation just might bring us closer together.' (Publication summary)

1 'I Will Not Be Doing It Again' : Reflections on Anxiety in Generation Z Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2022 single work autobiography
— Appears in: Griffith Review , no. 75 2022; (p. 134-139)
'I've been teaching at Australian universities for twenty-five years now. I began when I was twenty-seven - I'm now fifty-two. This means I've been next to university students since 1996, an if you're curious about these things, you see patterns begin to emerge.' (Introduction)
1 A Big Sunny Shack : Cosmo Cosmolino by Helen Garner Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Like an Australian Writer 2021;
1 The Australian Book You Should Read Next : Tracker by Alexis Wright Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 13 July 2020;

— Review of Tracker Alexis Wright , 2017 single work biography

'A chorus of voices about one of the country’s most prominent Indigenous activists is a glorious kaleidoscope of testimony.'

1 My Mother Taught Me the Joy of Reading. I Remember Her through Books Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 26 June 2020;

'When I told my mother I was bored, she would start a pilgrimage around the house. She’d go from room to room, shelf to shelf, and come back with a pile of eight or 10 books. She’d sit on the edge of my bed and slide the pile apart, describing each book. Some of them I knew I would never read, either because I’d already tried them and found their first few pages dull, or because the lettering on the cover or the font inside was too small, suggesting a density of thought that I would find impenetrable. But in general every pile contained two or three books I could read, and boredom would be held off for another day or two.' (Introduction)

1 5 y separately published work icon The Details The Details : Love, Death and Reading Tegan Bennett Daylight , Cammeray : Simon and Schuster Australia , 2020 19152638 2020 single work autobiography

'A long and intimate relationship with reading has taught acclaimed writer Tegan Bennett Daylight that - in life as in books - the delight is in the details.

'Tegan Bennett Daylight has led a life in books – as a writer, a teacher and a critic, but first and foremost as a reader. Reading has been her inspiration and solace, her recreation and profession, her poison and her medicine.

'In this deeply intimate and insightful work, Daylight describes how her rich storehouse of reading has nourished her life, and how her life informs her reading. In both, she shows us that it’s the small points of connection – the details - that really matter: what we see when someone close to us dies, when we give birth, when we fall in love, when we make friends. The details are what we can share and compare and carry with us.

'Daylight writes with invigorating candour and compassion about her mother’s last days; her own experiences of childbearing and its aftermath (in her celebrated essay ‘Vagina’); her long admiration of Helen Garner and George Saunders; and her great loves and friendships. Each chapter is a revelation, and a celebration of how books offer not an escape from ‘real life’ but a richer engagement with the business of living.

'The result is a work that will truly deepen your relationship with books, and with other readers. The delight is in the details.'

Source: publisher's blurb

1 Keeping Faith with Words : On Teaching Literature in the Digital Age Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2019 single work essay
— Appears in: Griffith Review , 30 April no. 64 2019; (p. 245-253)

'For most of us who care to think about such things, the teenager was invented by JD Salinger in 1951. Of course, before he was described in literature, the teenager was a naturally occurring phenomenon in postwar America. As that country became the world's richest, a whole generation of young white people emerged who did not need to go immediately to work, whose parents' relative wealth and resulting access to astounding inventions like the washing machine and the motor car had created a new leisure. What Holden Caulfield has that young people did not have before him is time to think. Like a 1940s Hamlet he wanders the streets of New York, out of the jurisdiction of parents and teachers, free to ponder the 'phonies' he has known, free to feel miserable, free to feel trapped by the future his parents imagine for him.' (Publication abstract)

 

1 Ruth Park Brings Sydney’s Past to Life More Than Any Other Writer Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2019 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 5 March 2019;

P'ark’s bold, glittering descriptions and her vigorously alive characters are forever lodged in my consciousness.'

1 A Tribute to Georgia Blain and Between a Wolf and a Dog Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: The Stella Interviews 2018;

'Georgia Blain’s final novel, Between a Wolf and a Dog, was published in 2016 and is currently shortlisted for the 2017 Stella Prize. Sadly, Georgia passed away from a brain tumour in December 2016. To honour her shortlisting and celebrate the novel, Georgia’s friend and fellow writer Tegan Bennett Daylight shares this reflection.' (Introduction)

1 Learning to See Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2017 single work prose
— Appears in: Island , no. 150 2017; (p. 26-31)

'Tegan Bennett Daylight on the sensual detail of life.

1 Does Mentoring Matter? Aoife Clifford , James Bradley , D. B. C. Pierre , Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: Australian Author , May vol. 49 no. 1 2017;

'Aoife Clifford, James Bradley, DBC Pierre and Tegan Bennett Daylight talk about whether writers need mentors, what you should and shouldn't expect, and other writerly wisdom.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Consider This : Helen Garner's Cosmo Cosmolino Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , May 2016;
1 Animals of the Savannah Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: The Best Australian Stories 2016 2016; (p. 6-20)
'Raffaello's face had grown in the years between fifteen and seventeen, forming a kind of clod, as though the new face was a growth over the first, finer one. He was going out with Katie Goldsworthy now. They were our Romeo and Juliet. You might wonder how I knew this as I had, now that Judy was gone, absolutely no friends. But it was the news, which is democratic in its reach. Even I was included when Katie told the story of the secret party on her father's moored yacht, falling asleep in the cabin, being reported as missing, the police called, Katie and Raffaello dragged, beautiful with sleep, out of their berth and onto the deck. I hated myself for being interested, but the other girls made space for me in the circle around Katie, and I gratefully moved into it. ' (Introduction)
1 The Bridge Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2016 single work short story
— Appears in: Underline , December no. 1 2016; (p. 24-27)
1 Fully Present, Utterly Connected Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2015 single work essay
— Appears in: The Best Australian Essays 2015 2015;
1 8 y separately published work icon Six Bedrooms Tegan Bennett Daylight , North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2015 8522233 2015 selected work short story

'Six Bedrooms is about growing up; about discovering sex; and about coming of age. Full of glorious angst, embarrassment and small achievements.

'Hot afternoons on school ovals, the terrifying promise of losing your virginity, sneaking booze from your mother's pantry, the painful sophistication and squalor of your first share house, cancer, losing a parent.

'Tegan Bennett Daylight's powerful collection captures the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming adult. Over these ten stories, we find acute portrayals of loss and risk, of sexual longing and wreckage, blunders and betrayals. Threaded through the collection is the experience of troubled, destructive Tasha, whose life unravels in unexpected ways, and who we come to love for her defiance, her wit and her vulnerability.

'Stunningly written, and shot through with humour and menace, Six Bedrooms is a mesmerising collection of moments from adolescence through adulthood, a mix of all the potent ingredients that make up a life.' (Publication summary)

1 Other Animals Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 73 no. 4 2014; (p. 130-136)
1 Fully Present, Utterly Connected Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2014 single work review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , October 2014; Critic Swallows Book : Ten Years of the Sydney Review of Books 2023;

— Review of The Golden Age Joan London , 2014 single work novel
1 Love Is a Stranger Tegan Bennett Daylight , 2014 single work short story
— Appears in: Island , no. 137 2014; (p. 68-72)
' I'd heard the boys at school say you needed to run after your first drink, to get the alcohol working. It got you drunk faster. I didn't bother with that. I was drinking brandivino, a foul, sultana-flavoured brew. I took a painful gulp of it, and watched as a possum came gripping along the wire of a telegraph pole, not knowing the death humming along beside it. Its eyes were filmed with light as it reached the safety of wood, and then it went down face first like a lizard...' (Publication abstract)
X