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 working on a biography of Drusilla Modjeska.
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
