Kathryn Heyman is an Australian writer of novels and plays. She is the director of the Australian Writers Mentoring Program[1] and Fiction Program Director of Faber Writing Academy.[2]

Career

Born in New South Wales, Australia, she was brought up in Lake Macquarie with her four siblings.[3][4]

As a young adult Heyman spent many years in the United Kingdom, where she studied under the Caribbean poet E.A. Markham, and where she was first published.[5]

Heyman is the author of six novels: The Breaking (1997), Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (1999), The Accomplice (2003) Captain Starlight's Apprentice (2006) Floodline (2013) and Storm and Grace (2017)[6] She is also a playwright for theatre and radio and has held a number of creative writing fellowships in the UK and Australia. Her short stories have appeared in a number of collections and also on radio.

Heyman's first novel, The Breaking, was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and shortlisted for the Scottish Writer of the Year Award.[7] Her third, The Accomplice, won an Arts Council England Writer's Award and was shortlisted for the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards. The Accomplice is a fictional account of the wreck of the Dutch flagship the Batavia off the Australian coast in the 17th century. As a meditation on complicity with evil it has been compared with the work of Joseph Conrad and William Golding.[8]

Her fourth novel, Captain Starlight's Apprentice, features a woman bushranger, the birth (and near death) of the Australian film industry, and a British migrant to Australia who undergoes electroconvulsive therapy. In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Nita Kibble Literary Award.

Floodline, published 2013, is set during the aftermath of a great flood, and has been compared with the writing of Cormac McCarthy.[9] Heyman's writing has also been compared with that of Angela Carter,[10] David Malouf,[11] Peter Carey and Kate Grenville.[12]

Heyman's sixth novel Storm & Grace, a psychological thriller about freediving, deals with violence against women and was published by Allen & Unwin in February 2017.[13]

Heyman's work has appeared on BBC Radio 4, and a five-part dramatic adaptation of Captain Starlight's Apprentice was broadcast on Woman's Hour in April 2007.[14] In 2013 she delivered the NSW Premier's Literary Awards keynote address.[15]

Books

  • The Breaking. Phoenix House (1997); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743314944
  • Keep Your Hands on the Wheel. Phoenix House (1999); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743315354
  • The Accomplice. Hodder Headline (2003); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743314357
  • Captain Starlight's Apprentice. Hodder Headline (2006); Allen & Unwin (2012) ISBN 9781743313978
  • Floodline. Allen & Unwin (2013) ISBN 9781743312797
  • Storm & Grace. Allen & Unwin (2017) ISBN 9781743313633
  • Fury. Allen & Unwin (2021) ISBN 9781760529376

Plays

  • The Princess Who Couldn't Fly (and a Word or Two About the Crippled King) (1990)
  • Unreal (1991)
  • Sex, Lies and Model Aeroplanes (1991) with David Lennie and Paul Tolton
  • Exodus (1993) with David Purveur
  • Dancing on the Word (1993)
  • That's The Way to Do It (1994) with Jo Enright

Works for BBC Radio

  • Far Country (2002), starring Kerry Fox
  • Keep Your Hands on the Wheel (2003), starring Kerry Fox
  • Moonlight's Boy (2005)
  • Closing Time (2005), (BBC short)
  • Captain Starlight's Apprentice (2007)

Awards

  • Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Nonfiction Award shortlist, 2022 (Fury)[16]
  • Australia Council Established Writers New Work Grant 2006 – 2008[17]
  • Kibble Prize shortlist, (Captain Starlight's Apprentice)[18]
  • Arts Council of England Writer's Award, (The Accomplice)[19]
  • Western Australian Premier's Book Awards shortlist, (The Accomplice)[20]
  • Wingate Scholarship, (The Accomplice)[21]
  • Southern Arts Writers Award (Keep Your Hands on the Wheel)[22]
  • Orange Prize longlist, (The Breaking)[23]
  • Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year shortlist, (The Breaking)[24]
  • Hallam Poetry Prize, 1996[25]

References

  1. ↑ Author profile, Sydney Writers Festival 2017.
  2. ↑ Faber Writing Academy, Writing a Novel, 2015.
  3. ↑ Jodie Minus, "The Face: Kathryn Heyman", Weekend Australian, 17–18 May 2003, Review, p. R3.
  4. ↑ Kelsey-Sugg, Anna & Zajac, Bec, "When Kathryn Heyman was traumatised and needing to escape, a fishing trawler offered her the hope of salvation", ABC Radio National, 25 May 2012.
  5. ↑ Heyman, "There's no place like home", Sydney Morning Herald, Good Weekend, no. 15 July 2006, pp. 31–32.
  6. ↑ Allen & Unwin, publisher
  7. ↑ McMillan,Joyce, A familiar fear and loathing, Glasgow Herald Friday 21 November 1997
  8. ↑ Chevalier, Tracey, et al., "Summer Reading", The Guardian, 2003.
  9. ↑ Clarke, Stella, "City's souls lost and saved in the flood", The Australian, 14 September 2013.
  10. ↑ Sanders, Kate, The Times 27 May 2006.
  11. ↑ Duncan, Shirley J. Paolini, "Outlaw odyssey.(Captain Starlight's Apprentice) (Book review)", Antipodes, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 89(2).
  12. ↑ White, Judith, The Bulletin, 30 May 2006.
  13. ↑ Louise Swinn, Sydney Morning Herald, 18 February 2017.
  14. ↑ Captain Starlight's Apprentice, BBC – Woman's Hour Drama.
  15. ↑ University of Newcastle
  16. ↑ "2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 19 January 2022. Retrieved 26 January 2022.
  17. ↑ "Literature Board Assessment Meeting Report" (PDF). Australia Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 February 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  18. ↑ "History of Shortlisted Authors" (PDF). Kibble Literary Awards. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  19. ↑ "Literary Cash Boost for Authors". BBC News. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  20. ↑ "2003 Shortlist". Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Archive. State Library of Western Australia.
  21. ↑ "Record of Wingate Scholars 1988–2011" (PDF). Wingate Scholarships Anniversary Archive. Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  22. ↑ "Kathryn Heyman". Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Scheme. Royal Literary Fund. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  23. ↑ "Longlist 1998". Women's Prize for Fiction. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  24. ↑ "Mother & Child Reunion". The Scotsman. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
  25. ↑ "Kathryn Heyman". Royal Literary Fund Fellowship Scheme. Royal Literary Fund. Archived from the original on 8 March 2014. Retrieved 28 February 2014.
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