Cirrus@Austlit

(Publication summary)

(Publication summary)

'When Gough Whitlam moves into her street in Cabramatta in 1957, eight-year-old Christine has little idea how her new neighbour, one of the most visionary and polarising political leaders of Australia, would shape the direction of her life. Born to working-class parents and living in a fibro house built by her truck-driver father, Christine simply dreams that one day she might work as a private secretary like her aunt.

'But when the reforms Whitlam championed give Christine the chance to go to university, her world expands. She experiences the transformative power of education, struggles to balance motherhood with being the family breadwinner, and faces her own mental health battles. She follows a path forged by Whitlam, from scholarships he fought for, to local community initiatives he generated, and even as far as China, where Whitlam crucially initiated Australia’s relationship when he visited the country in 1973.

'Written with genuine heart and humour, Gough and Me is a nostalgic and deeply personal memoir of social mobility, cultural diversity, and the unprecedented opportunities that the Whitlam era gave one Australian working-class woman.' (Publication summary)

''Hildegard of Bingen was a woman of extraordinary creative expression and this book approaches her wisdom through the gift of poetry which allows us to move into a more intuitive space. It is a book to slow us down, that invites us to ponder, and calls us to follow Hildegard towards a growing greenness in our lives.' - Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, REACE, Abbey of the Arts

''Hildegard's life sings and dances across the pages of this engaging harmony of her works, set out in this poetic journey that commences at the twilight of her life and rewinds back through the lens of time. Hildegard's many gifts - including her charm - are expertly embedded. A very enjoyable and fascinating read.' - Dr Christine Cameron

''Colleen Keating brings to this impressive collection some very fine, positively Hildegardian qualities - a robust earthiness, an inner strength, a passion for justice and a fiery light.' - Dr Mary O'Connell

''What an oeuvre! What a superb and elaborate work! These nine books of poems by Australian poet Colleen Keating tell Hildegard's story in a stunning way. The reader feels put into the landscape and ambience of Hildegard's medieval cloistered world. Thus I highly recommend reading, tasting and meditating on this poetic journey with Hildegard of Bingen.' - Dr Annette Esser, Founder and President of the Scivias Institute for Art and Spirituality, Germany.' (Publication summary)

"With Britain braced for a German invasion, MI5 recruited an ex RNAS officer, come confidence trickster, called Walter Dicketts as a double agent. Codenamed Celery, Dicketts was sent to Lisbon with the seemingly impossible mission of persuading the Germans he was a traitor and then extract crucial secrets. Once there, the Nazis spirited him off to Germany. With his life on the line, Dicketts had to outwit his interrogators in Hamburg and Berlin before returning to Britain as, in the Nazis eyes, a German spy. Despite discovering he had been betrayed as an MI5 plant before he even left for Germany, Celery somehow got back to Lisbon. After that he persuaded an Abwehr Officer to defect, and spent nine months undercover in Brazil. A mixture of hero and crook, Dicketts was worldly and intelligent, charming and charismatic. Sometimes rich and sometimes poor, his private life was a web of complexity and deception. Using family and official records, police records, newspaper articles and memories, the author unravels the tangled yet true story of Double Agent Celery."

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'An unacceptable liaison, a secret birth, a mother's silence and her black child's journey to discover the truth. The story begins in 1948, Sydney, Australia. Pretty, blonde Grace discovers she is pregnant to a visiting black American serviceman. The White Australia Policy is in place and society's judgment matters; so what will Grace do with this baby.

This is the extraordinary true story of Sharyn Killens - the inconvenient child.

The baby Sharyn, is rescued from squalid foster care by a visiting African American champion boxer and taken to live in a 'party house' in Sydney's red light district of Kings Cross. But her absent, elegant mother then abandons Sharyn in a convent-orphanage at age five, where she suffers abuse at the hands of a demented nun.

By fifteen, discrimination within her family, resentment and clashes over her father's undisclosed identity see the troubled runaway teenager arrested in the streets of Kings Cross. She has committed no crime but she is sentenced to the notorious juvenile detention centers of Parramatta and Hay, during the 1960s. Sharyn Killens' solace is her love of music but can she realize her dream to become a singer if, by twenty-four, she is caught up in the Kings Cross lifestyle?

Determined to find her father, Sharyn sets out in search of her roots, a quest taking her across the world and eventually to America's Deep South. But will she find the loving family and belonging she has yearned for all her life?' (Publisher's blurb)