person or book cover
Courtesy of Paddy O'Reilly.
Paddy O'Reilly Paddy O'Reilly i(A3183 works by) (a.k.a. Patricia O'Reilly; P. A. O'Reilly)
Born: Established: 1959 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
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.

BiographyHistory

Paddy O'Reilly was born in Melbourne. She travelled extensively in her early twenties and returned to study literature and Japanese at Deakin and Swinburne Universities in the late 1980s.

After graduating, she spent several years in Japan as a copywriter and translator. In 1992 she translated the Japanese play Itojigoku (Woven Hell) by Rio Kishida, which was performed at the Adelaide and Perth Arts Festivals, and in 1997 she was the Asialink Australia Council writer-in-residence in Japan. Research from that trip was used in her first novel, The Factory.

She has won a number of short story awards and her stories have been anthologised widely, including in five issues of Best Australian Stories.

She published a short story collection, The End of the World, and a novella, The Deep End in 2007. Her second novel, The Fine Colour of Rust, was published in 2012 and her third novel, The Wonders, in 2014. In 2015 and 2016, she released collections of short stories, It Happened in a Holden and It Happened Off the Leash.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2020 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Literature Career Development $5,035
2016 recipient Creative Industries Career Fund to complete her novel The White Line, a story of survival at the bottom of the so-called ‘trickle down effect’.
2012 Australia Council Literature Board Grants Grants for Developing Writers $40,000 for fiction.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Other Houses Mulgrave : Affirm Press , 2022 23591400 2022 single work novel

'Lily works as a cleaner. She moves through houses in inner-city Melbourne, unseen, scrubbing away the daily residue of other people s privilege. Her partner Janks works the line in a local food factory. With every pay check they inch further away from their former world of poverty and addiction.

'Lily and Janks are determined that their daughter Jewelee will have a different life. She ll have a career, not a dead-end job. She ll have savings, not debt. But precarious lives are easily upended. One wrong move throws the family into a situation in which the lines between right and wrong, hope and disappointment, are blurred.

'Other Houses is a masterful and tender story about people who live from payday to payday. Acutely observed and lyrical, Paddy O Reilly's novel paints a haunting picture of class, aspiration and the boundaries we will cross for love.' (Publication summary)

2023 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2023 longlisted Davitt Award Best Adult Crime Novel
2023 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover designed by Sandy Cull.
y separately published work icon The Wonders Mulgrave : Affirm Press , 2014 7617609 2014 single work novel

'What sets them apart is the radical, experimental and sometimes faulty medical treatments they've all undergone. Leon has a hole punched through his chest and a small mechanical heart visible to all; Kathryn has been cured of a rare genetic disorder but the treatment left her covered in curly black wool; and performance artist Christos has metal wings implanted into his back.

'When 'The Wonders' are brought together by a canny entrepreneur, their glamorous, genre-defying, twenty first-century freak show becomes a global sensation. But what makes them objects of fascination also places them in danger. A wonderfully inventive novel that challenges our ideas about celebrity, disability and the value of life from one of Australia's finest authors at the peak of her powers.' (Publication summary)

2015 winner Norma K. Hemming Award
y separately published work icon The Fine Colour of Rust London : Blue Door , 2012 Z1844909 2012 single work novel 'Single mother Loretta Boskovic may have fantasies about dumping her two kids in the orphanage and riding off on a Harley with her dream lover, but her reality is life in a dusty country town called Gunapan. A self-dubbed 'old scrag', Loretta's got a big heart and a strong sense of injustice. So, when Gunapan's primary school is threatened with closure, and there's a whiff of corruption wafting through the corridors of the local council, she stirs into action. She's short of money, influence and a fully functioning car, but she does have loyal friends who'll do whatever it takes to hold on to the scrap of world that is home' (Publisher blurb).
2013 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
Last amended 20 Jan 2020 13:48:43
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X