Bernadette Brennan is a literary critic, academic and researcher in contemporary Australian writing. She is the author of a number of publications, including a monograph on Brian Castro and two edited collections: Just Words?: Australian Authors Writing for Justice (UQP 2008), and Ethical Investigations: Essays on Australian Literature and Poetics (Vagabond 2008). In 2017 she published her award-winning literary biography A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work (Text). She followed that book with another award-winning book, Leaping Into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears (A&U 2021). Bernadette is currently undertaking a Fellowship at the National Library of Australia and working on a biography of Drusilla Modjeska.
Upcoming Events : Newcastle Writers Festival
University of Newcastle NUspace X207
Writing the Lives of Writers (With Brigitta Olubas, Catherine Lumby, Susan Wyndham)
April 6, 11.30am
Finding It In The Family (With Andre Dao, Tony Birch, Laura Elizabeth Woollett)
April 7, 10am
Awards for Leaping Into Waterfalls: The Enigmatic Gillian Mears
Winner Magarey Medal for Biography 2022
Winner National Biography Award 2022
Winner The Age Book of the Year Award, Non-Fiction 2022
Shortlisted NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction 2022
Longlisted Nib Literary Award 2022
