Steven Amsterdam Steven Amsterdam i(A93098 works by)
Born: Established: New York (City), New York (State),
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United States of America (USA),
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Americas,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: ca. 2004
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BiographyHistory

Steven Amsterdam grew up on New York's Upper West Side. He has worked as a travel publisher and designer for Random House and, since his move to Australia, has worked in both psychiatric and palliative care nursing.

In May 2009, Amsterdam was granted permanent residency in Australia.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Easy Way Out Sydney : Hachette Australia , 2016 9663161 2016 single work novel

'Evan's job is to help people die.

'Evan is a nurse - a suicide assistant. His job is legal - just. He's the one at the hospital who hands out the last drink to those who ask for it.

'Evan's friends don't know what he does during the day. His mother, Viv, doesn't know what he's up to at night. And his supervisor suspects there may be trouble ahead.

'As he helps one patient after another die, Evan pushes against the limits of the law - and his own morality. And with Viv increasingly unwell, his love life complicated, to say the least, Evan begins to wonder who might be there for him, when the time comes.' (Publication summary)

2017 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Fiction
2017 longlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2017 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian Literary Fiction Book of the Year
2017 shortlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
2017 longlisted Indie Awards Fiction
y separately published work icon What the Family Needed Collingwood : Sleepers Publishing , 2011 Z1817105 2011 single work novel

'“Okay, tell me which you want: To be able to fly or to be invisible.”

Alek, 7

'And so begins the tale of a family finding itself, told by each of its members as they discover powers they never thought possible, from the author of the acclaimed Things We Didn’t See Coming.' (Publication summary)

2013 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
2012 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award Fiction Prize
2012 longlisted ASAL Awards ALS Gold Medal
y separately published work icon Things We Didn't See Coming Collingwood : Sleepers Publishing , 2009 Z1564576 2009 selected work short story (taught in 3 units)

Nine connected stories, ' Things We Didn't See Coming follows a man over three decades as he tries to survive - and to retain his humanity - in a world savaged by successive cataclysmic events.

Opening on the eve of the millennium, when the world as we know it is still recognisable, we meet the then nine-year-old narrator fleeing the city with his parents, just ahead of a Y2K breakdown of the grid which signals the world's transformation and decline. In the wake of this develop strange, sometimes horrific, sometimes unexpectedly funny circumstances as he goes about the no longer simple act of survival: trying to protect squatters against floods in a place where the rains never stop; harassed (and possibly infected) by a man wracked with plague; functioning as a salaried embezzler of 'the state'; escorting the gravely ill on adventure trips.

Yet despite the violence and brutality of these days, we learn that even as the world is spinning out of control essential human impulses still hold sway - that we never entirely escape our parents, envy the success of those around us and, chiefly, that we crave love' (Harvill Secker website).

2010 shortlisted Australian Book Review Fan Poll
2009 winner The Age Book of the Year Award Book of the Year
2010 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
2010 longlisted Guardian First Book Award
2009 winner The Age Book of the Year Award Fiction Prize
Last amended 23 Feb 2021 14:31:29
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