Brian Matthews (writer)

Brian Matthews
Born	1936 St Kilda, Victoria
Occupation	Writer
Language	English
Nationality	Australian

Brian Matthews (born 1936) is an Australian biographer and short story writer who was born in St Kilda, Victoria, and educated at Melbourne University. In 1967 he moved to Adelaide to teach English and Australian literature at Flinders University.

Matthews was granted an Australia Council for the Arts Writer's Fellowship in 1989 and was Chair of the Literature Board of the Australia Council from 1990 to 1992. He is considered Australia's foremost scholar on Henry Lawson and his mother Louisa. His biography of Louisa Lawson, Louisa, won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal and the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for non-fiction.

Bibliography

Novel

• Magpie with Peter Goldsworthy (1992)

Short story collections

• Quickening and Other Stories (1989)

Autobiography

• A Fine and Private Place (2000)

Biography

• Louisa (1987)
• Manning Clark : A Life (2008)

Essays

• Romantics and Mavericks : The Australian Short Story (1987)
• Oval Dreams : Larrikin Essays on Sport and Low Culture (1991)

Edited

• Henry Lawson : Selected Stories (1971)
• Readers, Writers, Publishers : Essays and Poems (2004)

Awards and nominations

• 1988 winner ALS Gold Medal – Louisa
• 1988 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards – Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction – Louisa
• 1988 winner Victorian Premier's Literary Awards – The Nettie Palmer Prize for Non-Fiction – Louisa
• 1989 joint winner Queensland Premier's Literary Awards – Arts Queensland Steele Rudd Australian Short Story Award – Quickening and Other Stories
• 2001 winner Queensland Premier's Literary Awards – Best Non-Fiction Book – A Fine and Private Place
• 2010 winner National Biography Award – Manning Clark : A Life