Cirrus@Austlit

'A witty and poignant final novel from acclaimed author and filmmaker Shirley Barrett about what destroys us, what sustains us, and what we carry from one world into the next.

''Engaging, original and full of curiosity and wit . . . I didn't want it to end.' Asher Keddie

'Bursting with life . . . I was gripped from the first chapter.' Debra Oswald

'A subversive, dark delight.' Kat Stewart
'Barrett is a masterly world-builder.' New York Times

'On a rainy night in 1871, an idealistic schoolmistress arrives on Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour. Mrs Hopkins doesn't know what to expect from the notorious Biloela Industrial School for Girls, but nothing could prepare her for what she encounters inside the high sandstone walls: the conditions are dismal, the rules are largely conceptual, and the girls spend most of their time finding creative ways to outsmart the adults.

'Very quickly, Mrs Hopkins realises that noble intentions won't be enough to plough through the chaos around her. An unconventional school requires unconventional methods, and Mrs Hopkins is going to have to find her own ways to reach her lively, lost charges. But her own ghosts have followed her to Cockatoo Island, and refuse to stay hidden for much longer.

'This witty, surreal and poignant final novel from Shirley Barrett is about what destroys us, what sustains us, and what we carry with us from one world into the next.' (Publication summary)

I't wasn't just the bad break-up that caused Eleanor's life to unravel. It was the cancer. And the demons that came with it. Freshly single and thoroughly traumatised from the ordeals of breast cancer, Eleanor Mellett starts a new job as a teacher in a remote mountain hamlet. It's certainly peaceful enough, almost too peaceful. But what's become of the previous teacher, the saintly Miss Barker, who has disappeared abruptly under mysterious circumstances? And what's with all those locks on the door? And what the hell is that bus doing idling outside her house late, late at night?

'When the local priest offers to exorcise Eleanor of her 'cancer demon', she probably should have declined. Because that's when all her troubles start in earnest. That's when the visitors come a-knocking.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Series one:

Two strangers go on the run together after being caught up in a deadly carjacking.

Series two:

In the first season, checkout chick Lola Buckley and accountant Chelsea Babbage were thrown together by fate and circumstance in a thrilling chase across Australia in a car full of drugs and money. After a hair-raising pursuit across the starkly varied landscapes of Australia, the second season sees them journey the length of Thailand and New Zealand as they turn from the hunted into the hunters in an effort to bring the fight to their pursuers and unearth the truth about how and why this whole thing started. (Source: Screen Australia)

'When the eldest daughter of a whaling family in Eden, New South Wales, sets out to chronicle the particularly difficult season of 1908, the story she tells is poignant and hilarious, filled with drama and misadventure.

Swinging from her own hopes and disappointments, both domestic and romantic, to the challenges that beset their tiny whaling operation, Mary's tale is entirely relatable despite the hundred-odd years that separate her world from ours.

Chronicling her family's struggle to survive the season and her own attempts to navigate an all-consuming crush on an itinerant whaleman with a murky past, Rush Oh! is also a celebration of an extraordinary episode in Australian history when a family of whalers formed a fond, unique allegiance with a pod of Killer whales - and in particular, a Killer whale named Tom.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Detective Sergeant Eve Winter investigates the deaths of two young women, both of whom are tattooed with the same design.

'A character drama set in 1969 in Kings Cross; the time and place Australia came of age and the new generation broke all the rules. It was the Summer of Love. Mick Jagger was in town, Australia was glued to the telecast of the moon landing and American sailors clashed on the street with anti-Vietnam war protesters. We follow Joan Millar, 28, a maverick midwife returning to Australia and five young pregnant women, whose choices for their babies and own lives exemplify the radical changes at the heart of the cultural and sexual revolution. Their lives intersect between a maternity hospital, a home for unwed mothers and the wild streets of Darlinghurst.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive. (Sighted: 13/2/2014)

'A murder mystery series, Mr & Mrs Murder follows Nicole and Charlie, a married couple who run an extreme cleaning business, specialising in crime scenes. Armed with wit, smarts and the invisibility that cleaning brings, the duo solve the crimes the cops can't in a murder mystery with a smile.'

(Source: Australian Television in Production website)

'[This] series centres on four young families with one thing in common: the men are in charge of raising the kids.

'It's the beginning of a new school year and recently retired Lewis (Gary Sweet) finds himself in the unfamiliar role of stay-at-home dad to Tilda, his daughter with nurse Gemma (Julia Morris).

'Gemma works at the hospital with her best friend Abi (Natalie Saleeba) whose husband Mark (Rhys Muldoon) is juggling a return to part-time work and looking after five-year-old Poppy.

'Mark's brother-in-law Kane (Gyton Grantley) is in a relationship with Tom (Tim Campbell), raising Tom's orphaned niece Stella.

'When dropping their daughters off on the first day of school, the three men meet Justin (Firass Dirani), a former AFL star who, thanks to his bad boy ways, has seen his career and family walk out the door. He is now facing the fight of his life to win custody of his twin boys Zac and Jacob and eight-month-old daughter Angie.

'Finding themselves severely outnumbered by all the mothers at the school drop-off zone, the four men band together and help each other along as they face the challenges of raising a young family.'

Source: Channel Nine website (http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8469113) (Sighted: 17/10/2012)

'In Hopetoun there are few rules... And even fewer willing to follow them.

'In this town moral codes are muddied by circumstance and opportunity. There's gold for the taking, cash being splashed and power wielded ruthlessly with little regard for right and wrong. It's hard to know the good guys from the bad when guns, blades and fists speak louder than any law.

'This is the world of the Wild Boys, a high-energy adventure series about a gang of bushrangers whose charisma is as captivating and entertaining as their extreme exploits in the Australian bush.

'Set in 1860s NSW at the frontier - where gold has lured the opportunistic away from the still fledgling main colonies - Wild Boys follows four men on the outside of the law as they come up against authority, the rich and greedy and the foibles of their own hearts.

'Jack, Dan, Conrad and Captain Gunpowder are the Wild Boys.

'Jack wants enough gold to head west, buy land and settle down with Mary, Hopetoun's publican, butcher and brothel owner.

'Dan wants enough gold to head west and buy women (any women, really).

'Captain Gunpowder just wants to have fun with Jack, Dan and his cache of explosives (and maybe win the heart of a certain school teacher).

'And Conrad doesn't really care about money; he just wants to elope with the mayor's daughter Emilia.

The Wild Boys are making plans for the future, but for now they will have to make do with each other - staging hold-ups and keeping one step ahead of traps, trackers, and other outlaws.

'The question is: Are they smart enough to stay ahead of Fuller, Fife and Scanlon (each of whom has a very good reason to want the Wild Boys dead)?'

Source: Wild Boys official website )http://au.tv.yahoo.com/wild-boys/) (Sighted: 30/08/2011)

'Born out of the telemovie of the same name, Offspring is a contemporary drama series about Nina Proudman, a thirtysomething obstetrician and her fabulously messy family. Following the Proudman family's adventures searching for love, fulfillment and balance in the chaos of modern life, Offspring is about the life forces that drive us all: love, sex, babies, food and music. Stylistically fresh and visually exciting, Offspring mixes conventional narrative drama with flashbacks, graphic animation and fantasy sequences, showcasing the vibrant world of Fitzroy, Melbourne, where Nina and the extended Proudman family go about their unpredictable daily lives.'

Source: Australian Television Information Archive.

'Meredith, 30 and unmarried, arrives at a remote lighthouse island with her uncle, the new head keeper. Bad weather and misadventure leave her marooned with only the sullen and withdrawn assistant keeper, Fleet, for companionship. A tender, faltering courtship ensues.'

Source: Screen Australia.

The first Australian drama series to be made specifically for pay television, Love My Way follows the lives of a group of thirty-somethings who explore issues of friendship, step-parenting, divorce, and relationships. It deals with the randomness of life and the need many of us have to carve out a place in the world.

Central to the series is Frankie Paige, who attempts to negotiate the web of contemporary relationships, juggle the priorities of family obligations, and be both successful at love and fulfilled professionally, while hoping that 'happiness' might occur if all the other things fall into place. She lives with Tom, a once-successful chef who now cooks at the local rehabilitation hospital. Just down the road in a much nicer house lives her ex-husband (and Tom's brother), Charlie. An emotionally stunted architect/surfer now married to Julia, he and Frankie still have a relationship through their daughter, Lou. Throughout the series, these principal characters are pulled and strained by desires and contradictions that appear to be part and parcel of modern life.

'Set on the Gold Coast, WALK THE TALK follows the story of Joey Grasso, a highly motivated and powerfully self-deluded young talent agent on his quest to resurrect the career of a faded club singer.'

Source: Screen Australia.

In Sunray, a backwater town on the Murray River, there's little to do but fish or listen to the radio. Two sisters, twenty-year-old Dimity (who works in a Chinese restaurant with few patrons) and perky older sister Vicki-Ann (a hairdresser) have little in their lives to give them an interest, until the local radio station's manager moves in next door. Newly arrived from Brisbane, Ken Sherry is in his mid-40s, self centred, and three-times divorced, but the sisters develop a fierce and competitive crush on him. First Dimity then Vicki-Ann spend the night with their neighbour, one concluding he's her boyfriend and the other considering him her fiancé. That's when Ken's troubles really begin.

'Fast-paced series spin-off of the hit feature film. Filmed at an abandoned school in Sydney's Maroubra, this program was about an ethnically diverse group of students attending Hartley High School.'

Source: National Film and Sound Archive record.

An Australian television series which deals with the New South Wales Police Rescue Squad and its work attending to various incidents from road accidents to train crashes.