Gillian Mears

Gillian Mears (21 July 1964 – 16 May 2016) was an Australian short story writer and novelist. Her books Ride a Cock Horse and The Grass Sister won a Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlist, in 1989 and 1996, respectively. The Mint Lawn won The Australian/Vogel Award.^[1] In 2003, A Map of the Gardens won the Steele Rudd Award.^[2]

Life[]

Mears was born at Lismore Base Hospital, and raised in Grafton, New South Wales where she was school dux of Grafton High School.^[3]

She moved to Sydney to study at university, beginning a degree in archaeology at the University of Sydney having been inspired to pursue a career in archaeology after reading Gods, Graves and Scholars by C. W. Ceram. At the age of 18, she withdrew from the course, and instead completed a degree in communications at University of Technology, Sydney.^[3]

She lived near Grafton, New South Wales. She died in May 2016 after living with multiple sclerosis for seventeen years.^[4]

Awards and honors[]

• 1989 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlist, Ride a Cock Horse
• 1990 The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, winner, The Mint Lawn
• 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, shortlist, The Grass Sister
• 2003 Steele Rudd Award, winner, A Map of the Gardens
• 2011 Colin Roderick Award, winner, Foal's Bread
• 2012 Barbara Jefferis Award, shortlist, Foal's Bread ^[5]
• 2012 Miles Franklin Award, shortlist, Foal's Bread
• 2012 Australian Literature Society, Gold Medal, Foal's Bread ^[6]
• 2012 Prime Minister's Literary Awards, Fiction Award, Foal's Bread ^[7]

Works[]

Novels[]

• The Mint Lawn, Allen & Unwin, 1991, ISBN 978-1-86373-016-7
• The Grass Sister, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995, ISBN 978-0-09-183121-9
• Foal's Bread, Allen & Unwin, 2011, ISBN 978-1-74237-629-5

Short stories[]

• Ride a Cock Horse Pascoe Publishing, 1988, ISBN 978-0-947087-12-8
• Fineflour. University of Queensland Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-7022-2311-2.
• Collected stories, University of Queensland Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7022-2950-3
• A map of the gardens: stories, Pan Macmillan Australia, 2002, ISBN 978-0-330-36346-4^[8]

Non-fiction[]

• Paradise is a place, Photographer Sandy Edwards, Random House Australia, 1997, ISBN 978-0-09-183641-2

Memoir[]

• Alive in Ant and Bee

Children's book[]

• The Cat with the Coloured Tail, Walker Books, 2015, ISBN 9781922077400 (illustrated by Dinale Dabarera)

References[]

External links[]

• Hawley, Janet (7 May 2002). "Runaway success". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 13 November 2015.

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