Edwina Preston Edwina Preston i(A8241 works by)
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Preston is a Melbourne writer and performer in music and the spoken word. She published her debut novel in 2012 and a second in 2022.

She has also written for the Age newspaper.

Her work has been broadcast on national television and radio and she released a CD in 1997. She has been affiliated with a number of bands, including with Harry Howard in Harry Howard and the NDE and in ATOM.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Bad Art Mother Mile End : Wakefield Press , 2022 24271612 2022 single work novel

'Good mothers are expected to be selfless. Artists are seen as selfish. So what does this mean for a mother with artistic ambitions?

'Enter: frustrated poet Veda Gray, who is offered a Faustian bargain when a wealthy childless couple, the Parishes, invite her to exchange her young son Owen for time to write.

'Veda's story unfolds as an adult Owen reflects on his boyhood in the Melbourne suburbs, and in the vibrant bohemian inner-city art world where his restaurateur father was a king. Meanwhile, the talented women in his orbit - Veda, Mrs Parish, wife of an influential poet, muralist and restaurant worker Rosa - push against gender expectations to be recognised as legitimate artists, by their intimates and the wider world. And almost-aunt Ornella, who declares herself without an artistic bone in her body, is perhaps the closest thing Owen has to a traditional mother. As Owen is encouraged to 'be a man', he loses something of himself, too.

'Blending wit and pathos, love and fury, ambition and loss, this is an extraordinary novel of love and art, set in the Melbourne milieu of Georges and Mirka Mora, Joy Hester, and John and Sunday Reed.' (Publication summary)

2023 shortlisted The Stella Prize
2023 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
y separately published work icon The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2012 Z1886863 2012 single work novel historical fiction mystery 'A murder mystery and comedy of manners that is never what it seems.

'When brothers Arcadia and Otto Cirque arrive in a fading gold-mining town with their travelling circus, Saturnalia, the town and the life of young Mary Ann Ward will never be the same. Months later, the flamboyant Arcadia Cirque is found dead, a pregnant Marianne Ward goes missing and Otto Cirque sets off in pursuit of her.

'These dramatic events echo down the decades to Mrs Ivorie Hammer, who is dealing with her own problems. Pregnant and vexed by recent catastrophic events in her home town, she discovers that her own origins are not as she thought. As the small community of Pitch is scandalized by several mysterious deaths and disappearances, it is Ivorie's secret history that holds the key to the truth.

'The Inheritance of Ivorie Hammer is an imaginative epic that weaves together a Dickensian sense of mystery, colourful characters and a township at social war with itself. It is a unique and playful literary novel that announces the arrival of a dynamic new Australian writing talent.' (From the publisher's website.)
2013 longlisted Davitt Award Best Adult Crime Novel
Last amended 22 Jun 2023 13:16:46
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