Wayne Macauley Wayne Macauley i(A36707 works by)
Gender: Male
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

A Melbourne-based writer of short fiction, Wayne Macauley published his first novella, Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, in 2004. His work has also appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals including Meanjin, Westerly, Overland, Arena and HQ. With extensive experience writing for the theatre, Macauley was a founding member of the site-specific performance company, the Institute of Complex Entertainment. He has been a recipient of an Australia Council Literature Board grant.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2020 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Arts Projects for Individuals and Groups     $25,000 
2016 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Australia Council Literature Board Grants Keesing Studio Residencies $20,000.00
2013 recipient Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Fiction

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Simpson Returns Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2019 15404200 2019 single work novella

'Ninety years after they were thought to have died heroically in the Great War, the stretcher-bearer Simpson and his donkey journey through country Victoria, performing minor miracles and surviving on offerings left at war memorials. They are making their twenty-ninth, and perhaps final, attempt to find the country’s famed Inland Sea.

'On the road north from Melbourne, Simpson and his weary donkey encounter a broke single mother, a suicidal Vietnam veteran, a refugee who has lost everything, an abused teenager and a deranged ex-teacher. These are society’s downtrodden, whom Simpson believes can be renewed by the healing waters of the sea.

'In Simpson Returns, Wayne Macauley sticks a pin in the balloon of our national myth. A concise satire of Australian platitudes about fairness and egalitarianism, it is timely, devastating and witheringly funny.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Fiction
2020 longlisted Voss Literary Prize
y separately published work icon Caravan 2017 12163284 2017 single work drama

The dilapidated old caravan might be full of musty carpet and faded dreams, but for years a mother and daughter have called it home.

With nowhere else to go, Judy and daughter Donna live on top of each other, knowing the other won’t leave: they’re stuck, and will be till the end.

Judy holds court from the caravan’s double bed, surrounded by pills, a breathing machine and a flat-screen TV. Donna is just desperate not to die there. Donna’s looking to be whisked away by a Tinder date, but as the phone pings and Judy sucks oxygen from a mask in the tiny, cluttered space, they bicker and make up, scream and threaten violence and dream of better things.

Bitter and hilarious, tender and toxic, Caravan is a darkly comic look at life on the margins and the universal need for love.' (Production Summary)

2018 nominated AWGIE Awards Stage Award
y separately published work icon Some Tests Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2017 11323856 2017 single work novel science fiction

'It begins with the normally healthy Beth - aged-care worker, wife of David, mother of Lettie and Gem - feeling vaguely off-colour. A locum sends her to Dr Yi for some tests. 'There are a few things here that aren't quite right,' says Dr Yi, 'and sometimes it is these little wrongnesses that can lead us to the bigger wrongs that matter.' Beth is sent on to Dr Twoomey for more tests. Then to another specialist, and another referral after referral sees her bumped from suburb to suburb, bewildered, joining busloads of people all clutching white envelopes and hoping for answers. But what is actually wrong with Beth - is anything, in fact, wrong with her? And what strange forces are at work in the system? As the novel reaches its stunning climax, we realise how strange these forces are. Unnerving and brilliant, Some Tests is about waking up one morning and finding your ordinary life changed forever.' (Publication summary)

2018 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards Award for Fiction
2018 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2018 shortlisted APA Book Design Awards Best Designed Literary Fiction / Poetry Cover
Last amended 15 May 2020 13:20:04
Other mentions of "" in AustLit:
    X