Debra Adelaide

A Constant Hum by Alice Bishop

November 2019, no. 416

Thanks to the internet, the 24/7 news cycle, and social media, certain books are preceded by their reputations. They arrive freighted with so much publicity hype that reading them with fresh eyes is almost impossible. A Constant Hum is one such book, very much the product of a reputation established well before publication, due to the airing of individual stories in places like Seizure and Meanjin, along with several prizes and shortlistings.

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Zebra & other Stories by Debra Adelaide

by David Haworth •

March 2019, no. 409

David Haworth reviews 'Zebra & other Stories' by Debra Adelaide

As the United States tears itself to pieces over a proposed wall, which has in recent months transmogrified into a steel fence, here in Australia we have no right to be smug or to rubberneck. After all, Australia loves its fences. Since it was first occupied as a penal colony, this land has been bisected by a seemingly endless ...

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Open Page with Debra Adelaide

March 2019, no. 409

Generally where I am right now, in my study writing, but also in the garden. It is very uncomplicated.

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The Simple Act of Reading edited by Debra Adelaide

by Gillian Dooley •

January-February 2016, no. 378

Gillian Dooley reviews 'The Simple Act of Reading' edited by Debra Adelaide

Let's start with the title. The act of reading is anything but simple, as Fiona McFarlane and Gabrielle Carey both point out. Eyes, brain, and mind cooperate to create from a series of symbols with no intrinsic representative value a coherent message, or some amusing nonsense, or a persuasive argument, or a boring anecdote, or a parade of transparent lies.

D ...

The Women's Pages by Debra Adelaide

by Susan Sheridan •

November 2015, no. 376

Susan Sheridan reviews 'The Women's Pages' by Debra Adelaide

In this beautifully crafted novel, two parallel stories merge. Chapters alternate between Ellis, a young woman living in Sydney in the 1960s, and Dove, a thirty-eight-year-old woman in the present day. As the novel begins, Ellis is contemplating leaving her husband and taking her baby son with her; Dove is mourning the death of her adoptive mother – and writing a ...

The missing novels: our critics nominate some overlooked classics

by Debra Adelaide et al. •

September 2015, no. 374

Early success is no guarantee of a book’s continued availability or circulation. Some major and/or once-fashionable authors recede from public consciousness, and in some cases go out of print. We invited some writers and critics to identity novelists who they feel should be better known.

Peripheral Vision by Paddy O'Reilly

by Debra Adelaide •

August 2015, no. 373

Just as there are ways of writing short story collections, there are also ways of reading them. I used to be a rummager, picking through collections, seeking out the title piece, dipping in here and there to ascertain the feel of the stories, then reading the book from start to finish. Conscious now of the architecture of collections, of the fact that the author has ...

Ten authors on their favourite short story collections

by Hidden Author •

September 2014, no. 364

In the spirit of our annual ‘Books of the Year’ feature, in which we ask a range of writers and critics to nominate their favourite new fiction and non-fiction titles, we asked ten Australian short story writers to nominate their favourite short story collections and individual stories. As this is the first time we have run a short-story themed feature of this nature, our ten writers were free to nominate older titles if they wished to do so. Our only request was that at least one of their selections should have been published recently and that at least one be by an Australian author.

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