Penelope Layland Penelope Layland i(A31595 works by)
Born: Established: 1962 Liverpool, Liverpool area, Sydney Southwest, Sydney, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Penelope Layland has lived most of her life in Canberra. She gained a BA while working in the Public Service. During the 1980s-1990s Layland wrote regular columns for the Canberra Times, and she has worked for the newsapper as Associate Editor. Layland has been engaged as a speechwriter for the Minister for Arts and Communications. She has also served on the editorial board of Pandanus Books, established 2001, a scholarly and literary imprint within the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies (RSPAS), Australian National University.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2022 winner The Joanne Burns Award — National category
2020 shortlisted Aesthetica Creative Writing Competition — Poetry Unheralded Acts of the Gorgon
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Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Beloved Canberra : Recent Work Press , 2022 23667987 2022 selected work poetry

'In 1778, Dorothy Wordsworth’s mother died, and the six-year-old Dorothy was sent to live with extended family. She never returned to the family home, and it was not until adolescence that Dorothy became reacquainted with her brother William. The two formed an intense and passionate emotional bond. By 1794 they were living together from that time would rarely be physically separated for more than a few weeks at a time, for the rest of their lives.

'Written in the voice of Dorothy, Beloved traces the progression of their relationship, from the ecstatic infatuation of youth onwards, drawing upon Dorothy’s diaries and letters as well as the recollections of friends and family members and literary and biographical scholarship.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
2023 winner ACT Notable Awards ACT Literary Awards — Poetry — Traditional publishing
y separately published work icon Nigh Canberra : Recent Work Press , 2020 20911182 2020 selected work poetry

'From the author of the award-winning Things I’ve thought to tell you since I saw you last comes a new collection of poems steeped in a sense of dark foreboding. Jumping from the global to the everyday, many of the poems in Nigh chime with the mood that all is not right with the world. Even in the seemingly mundane, or overtly beautiful, Layland finds some uncomfortable truths waiting to be unpicked. Nigh displays the confidence of a poet looking and thinking deeply about the world and offering it up in language as crisp as it is beguiling.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
2021 shortlisted Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award
2020 winner ACT Notable Awards ACT Literary Awards — Poetry — Small Press
y separately published work icon Things I've Thought to Tell You Since I Saw You Last Kambah : Recent Work Press , 2018 14590835 2018 selected work poetry

'This new volume from Penelope Layland absorbingly quizzes memory, while questioning our apprehension of time and the importance of deep human connections. These poems explore mourning and loss in a way that is salutary, affirmative, meditative and uplifting, subtly refracting our common understandings and our claims on knowledge. In these works the ghosted quotidian, like a long filigree of light, reaches out to remind us of what we value and care for.' (Publication summary)
2019 winner ACT Writing and Publishing Awards — Poetry
2019 shortlisted Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award
2019 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
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Last amended 8 May 2006 13:26:49
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