Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and essays. She has also written books on the art of writing, and has edited anthologies of essays and stories. In 2016, she was awarded the Patrick White Award.

Life

Carmel Bird was born in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1940, and educated there. She started teaching in 1961, and taught for twenty years. She now lives in Central Victoria.

Bird has taught fiction writing at Melbourne, Deakin, Latrobe, Monash, Swinburne and RMIT Universities.

Writing career

Her first collection of short stories, called Births, Deaths and Marriages, was published in 1983, and her most recent novel (2010) is Child of the Twilight, a novel concerned with medical science and faith. Her most recent collection of short fiction is My Hearts Are Your Hearts (2015), and her most recent non-fiction is Fair Game (2015).

Awards and nominations

• 1991 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for The Bluebird Cafe
• 1991 — shortlisted in Victorian Premier's Award for The Bluebird Cafe
• 1996 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for The White Garden
• 1996 — shortlisted in the NSW Premier's Award; the Aurealis Award; the Ned Kelly Award for The White Garden
• 1998 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for Red Shoes
• 2001 — winner of the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal at the Mildura Writer's Festival

Bibliography

Novels

• Bird, Carmel (1985). Cherry Ripe.
• Bird, Carmel (1990). The Bluebird Café. New Directions.
• Bird, Carmel (1995). The White Garden.
• Bird, Carmel (under the name of Jack Power)l (1996). Crisis.
• Bird, Carmel (1998). Red Shoes.
• Bird, Carmel (2000). Unholy Writ.
• Bird, Carmel (2002). Open for Inspection.
• Bird, Carmel (2004). Cape Grimm.
• Bird Carmel (2010) Child of the Twilight
• Bird, Carmel (2016) Family Skeleton

Collections

• Bird Carmel (1981) Dimitra
• Bird Carmel (1983) Births,Deaths and Marriages
• Bird, Carmel (1987). The Woodpecker Toy Fact and Other Stories.
• Bird Carmel (1988) Woodpecker Point
• Bird, Carmel (1993). The Common Rat.
• Bird, Carmel (1996). Automatic Teller.
• Bird Carmel (2005) The Essential Bird
• Bird Carmel (2015) My Hearts Are Your Hearts

Anthologies (Edited)

• Bird, Carmel (1985). The Writing on the Wall: Collection of Poetry and Prose by Women.
• Bird, Carmel (1990). Australian Short Stories.
• Bird, Carmel (1991). Relations.
• Bird, Carmel (1996). Red Hot Notes.
• Bird, Carmel (1997). Daughters and Fathers.
• Bird, Carmel (1998). The Stolen Children: Their Story.
• Bird, Carmel (2000). The Penguin Century of Australian Stories.

Non-fiction

• Bird, Carmel (1988). Dear Writer.
• Bird, Carmel (1994). Not Now Jack - I'm Writing a Novel.
• Bird, Carmel (1996). Dear Writer (Revised and enlarged ed.).
• Bird Carmel (2010) Writing the Story of Your Life
• Bird Carmel (2013) Dear Writer Revisited
• Bird Carmel (2015) Fair Game

Children's

• Bird, Carmel (1996). The Mouth.
• Bird, Carmel (1998). The Cassowary's Quiz.

Book reviews

Date	Review article	Work(s) reviewed
2011	Bird, Carmel (June 2011). "Graphic impact". Australian Book Review (332): 59.	Wilson, Rohan (2011). The Roving Party. Allen & Unwin.
2011	Bird, Carmel (September 2011). "Whispering death". Australian Book Review (334): 27.	Richards, Tim (2011). Thought crimes. Black Inc.

External links

• CarmelBird.com — official website of Carmel Bird