Rhyll McMaster

Rhyll McMaster (born Brisbane 1947) is a contemporary Australian poet and novelist. She has worked as a secretary, a nurse and a sheep farmer. She now lives in Sydney and has written full-time since 2000.

Her poems have been appearing in Australian publications since she was sixteen. Her first book of poetry, The Brineshrimp, 1972, won the Harri Jones Memorial Prize for Poetry; Washing the Money, 1986, was awarded the C.J. Dennis Prize for Poetry and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry. On My Empty Feet was published in 1993 and poems from that selection were broadcast as a play for radio by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1996. Flying the Coop, New and Selected Poems, 1972-1994, was awarded the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1994. Chemical Bodies, A Diary of Probable Events, 1994-1997 was published in 1997.

Her first novel, Feather Man was published in Australia by Brandl & Schlesinger in 2007 and in the UK, US & Canada by Marion Boyars Publishers, 2008. It was awarded the inaugural 2008 Barbara Jefferis Award and the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, 2008. It was shortlisted for the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, Victorian Premier's Literary Award, 2007 and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, 2008 for an outstanding literary work.

McMaster has also been employed by The Canberra Times as a poetry editor and a book reviewer by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian.

Bibliography

Poetry

• The Brineshrimp (UQP, 1972) ISBN 0702207632
• Washing the Money: Poems with photographs (Angus & Robertson, 1986) ISBN 0207152810
• On My Empty Feet (William Heinemann, 1993) ISBN 0855615222
• Flying the Coop: New and selected poems 1972-1994 (William Heinemann, 1994) ISBN 085561627X
• Chemical Bodies: A diary of probable events, 1994-1997 (Brandl & Schlesinger, 1997) ISBN 187604005X

Novels

• Feather Man (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2007) ISBN 9781876040833
• Feather Man (Marion Boyars, 2008) ISBN 0714531480

External links

• Rhyll McMaster's official website
• 3 poems
• Review of Feather Man from Australian Book Review
• Review of Feather Man from Brisbane Times
• An excerpt from the novel Feather Man from Marion Boyars