Judith Clarke Judith Clarke i(A36330 works by) (a.k.a. Judith Anne Clarke)
Also writes as: Judith Desai
Born: Established: 24 Aug 1943 Sydney, New South Wales, ; Died: Ceased: 14 May 2020 Melbourne, Victoria,
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Judith Clarke was born and educated in Sydney. She has worked as a teacher, librarian and lecturer in creative writing before becoming a full-time writer. She has published short stories for adults as well as poetry in magazines.

Clarke's young adult fiction includes Starry Nights (2001) a thriller mystery, Wolf on the Fold (2000), for which she won the Children's Book Council of the Year Award, the multi-award winning novel Night Train,(1998) and Friend of my Heart (1994). Judith Clarke is well known in the Unites States, where her popular and humorous Al Capsella series have been very successful with The Heroic Life of Al Capsella (1992) being included in the American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults list. She has also published two collections of short stories, The Boy on the Lake: Stories of the Supernatural (1989), which has eleven stories, each ending with a scary twist, and Panic Stations (1995).

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon My Lovely Frankie Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2017 11459934 2017 single work novel young adult

'Frankie believed in Heaven quite literally, as if it was another lovely world out past the stars. And when he spoke the word "love", it seemed to spring free and fly into the air like a beautiful balloon you wanted to run after. But I couldn't tell my parents about Frankie, not properly. I told them I'd made friends with the boy in the room next to mine, and how he'd come from this little town out west. I couldn't tell them how he was becoming the best thing in my world. I couldn't tell anyone, I hardly admitted it to myself.'

'In the 1950s, 'entering' the seminary was for ever, and young boys were gathered into the priesthood before they were old enough to know what they would lose. Tom went to St Finbar's because he was looking for something more than the ordinary happiness of his home and school.

'But then he discovered that being able to love another person was the most important thing of all. For Tom, loving Frankie made him part of the world. Even when Frankie was gone...' (Synopsis)

2018 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adults' Fiction
y separately published work icon Three Summers Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2012 Z1852208 2012 single work novel young adult 'When Ruth and Fee finish school, they each must make a choice. Ruth's grandmother wants her to go to university and to see every marvellous place in the world. Fee wants to stay and be a mother. But for Ruth, leaving town means leaving Tam Finn, the elusive yet entrancing boy so unlike any other she has ever met.' (Trove record)
2013 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature
2012 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards Griffith University Young Adult Book Award
y separately published work icon The Winds of Heaven Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1577587 2009 single work novel young adult (taught in 2 units)

'When Fan was little she dreamed of magical countries in the far away blue hills. As she grew up she dreamed of love, and the boys came after her one by one by one.

'Clementine thought her cousin Fan's house in the country had a special smell: of sun and dust and kerosene and the wild honey they ate for breakfast on their toast. But then there were the feelings: the anger that smelled like iron and the disappointment that smelled like mud. Fan was strong and beautiful and Clementine thought she'd always be like that.

'But Fan was seeking something, and neither she nor Clementine knew exactly what... With sharp poetic prose, insight and compassion, Judith Clarke tells a moving and beautiful story as she traces the lives of two young women, separated by circumstance, but linked forever by blood and friendship.' (Publisher's blurb)

2010 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Young Adults' Fiction
2010 honour book CBCA Book of the Year Awards Book of the Year: Older Readers
Last amended 3 Feb 2023 15:52:53
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