Cirrus@Austlit

'In her Preface to Telling Lives, editor Chris Wallace invites the reader to join a thought experiment: a group of biographer-refugees, driven by earthly global warming to reside on planet Alpha Centauri, ask themselves: ‘Did biographers play a role in the downfall of Homo sapiens on Earth?’ Were they, in other words, complicit in the culture of disinformation that contributed to global catastrophe? Writing in the ‘post-truth era’, Wallace highlights the centrality of truth in what has traditionally been termed the ‘biographical contract’.' (Introduction)

'Serge Liberman, who died in December 2017, was an important and highly distinctive Australian ethnic writer. His short stories, including the posthumously published The Storyteller, conduct what is in effect a conversation between two worlds: that of post-Enlightenment rationality, on the one hand, and that of the magical, the folkloric, the Hassidic, imagination of the shtetl, on the other. Liberman’s profound tragic sense does not preclude the possibility of human redemption through empathy, compassion and imaginative inspiration.'  (Publication abstract)

'Stepladder to Hindsight is about a fascinating man who has reached a turning point in his life and looks back. In this work, renowned academic and life-writer Richard Freadman turns the pen on himself, producing an immensely compelling narrative of his life.   Elegant and richly self-aware, Stepladder to Hindsight gives us unbridled access to a complex life and a unique mind. Within these pages you will find humour and tragedy, peppered with astute literary commentary and philosophical musings. This 'almost memoir' is fiercely intelligent and so addictively personal that it is hard to put down.   What the critics said: "...an eloquent book, a unique combination of compelling storytelling, searching reflection, with an extraordinary range of mood and style - an original take on the art of life writing." - Arnold Zable  ' (Publication summary)

'One of my first sightings of Laurie was in a framed photo in the old Eagle Bar at La Trobe University. Entitled ‘The Coach,’ the photo featured a young and rather fit-looking Captain Coach addressing his players at the quarter or three-quarter time break. The players, it has to be said, look completely uninterested in proceedings; but according to the picture’s caption Laurie is pulling out all the rhetorical stops. The caption reads:

Senior Lecturer in English Laurie Clancy urges on the football team in mid-1969 with accounts of existentialism and the thinking of Kierkegarrd.'

(Author's introduction)

'A master of melancholic wit, Laurie Clancy was one of Australia's most versatile short story writers. If realism was his artistic staple, he had a genius for farce and the mock-heroic, and was remarkably adept at magic realism, postmodern experimentation and the fiction of ideas. Equally at home in the pub, the seminar room, literary journals and the columns of daily newspapers, Clancy was a wickedly astute but compassionate and ultimately good-humoured guide to the vagaries of the human heart, both at home and abroad. This posthumous selection shows him in his pomp as a practitioner of fiction's shorter forms.' (Publication summary)