Andrea Goldsmith (writer)

Andrea Goldsmith (born 1950) is an Australian writer and novelist.

This article is about the writer. For the engineer, see Andrea Goldsmith (engineer).

Andrea Goldsmith
Born1950 (age 72–73)
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
OccupationWriter, novelist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAustralian
Notable worksThe Prosperous Thief

Life

Goldsmith was born in Melbourne, Victoria, to an Australian-Jewish family.[1] She started learning the piano as a young child, and music remains an abiding passion. She initially trained as a speech pathologist and worked for several years with children suffering from severe communication impairment until becoming a full-time writer in the late 1980s.[2] From 1987 and through the 1990s she taught creative writing at Deakin University, and she continues to conduct workshops and mentor new novelists.[3]

She travels widely, and London, in particular, figures prominently in her novels. At the same time, she describes herself as 'a deeply Melbourne person'.[4]

Goldsmith lives in Clifton Hill, in Melbourne's inner suburbs, in a house she bought with her partner, the poet Dorothy Porter.[5] She continued to live there following Porter's death in 2008.[6]

Literary career

Andrea Goldsmith has published eight novels. Rich in ideas and characterisation, they tell of contemporary life in all its diversity. Narratives of ambition, love, family, art, music and relationships abound in her books.

She also writes literary essays on topics as diverse as Oliver Sacks ('Oliver Sacks: Anthropologist of Mind'), nuclear physics and life-threatening illness ('Chain Reaction') and Jewish-Australian identity ('Talmudic Excursions'). She is a lively and dramatic performer of her work and reads regularly at venues throughout Australia. She was a lecturer in creative writing at Deakin University in Melbourne (1995-8) and while as a writer-in-residence at La Trobe University she edited an anthology written by a group of people with gambling problems, called Calling A Spade A Spade. She conducts workshops and short courses for writers of fiction, and she mentors new novelists.

She has been a guest at all the major literary festivals in Australia, and appeared at the 2009 Sydney Writers' Festival.

Awards
  • 1993 — NBC Banjo Awards, NBC Lysbeth Cohen Memorial Prize Modern Interiors, shortlisted
  • 2003 — Miles Franklin Award The Prosperous Thief, shortlisted 2003

Bibliography

Novels

References
  1. "Andrea Goldsmith biography". andreagoldsmith.com.au. 20 October 2012. Retrieved 5 April 2019.
  2. Sullivan, Jane (5 April 2019). "Andrea Goldsmith: The joy of fiction is getting behind the characters' masks". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  3. "Andrea Goldsmith". AustLit: Discover Australian Stories. Archived from the original on 16 May 2018. Retrieved 9 September 2021.
  4. Dooley, Gillian (August 2014). "They All Begin with an Idea: A Conversation with Andrea Goldsmith" (PDF). Writers in Conversation. 1 (2): 13 – via ARCHIVED AT FLINDERS UNIVERSITY: DSPACE.FLINDERS.EDU.AU.
  5. Sullivan, Jane (5 April 2019). "Andrea Goldsmith: The joy of fiction is getting behind the characters' masks". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  6. "Porter dead at 54", Sydney Star Observer, 10 December 2008, archived from the original on 18 December 2008, retrieved 19 December 2008
  7. Anderson, Don (November 2002). "The Prosperous Thief by Andrea Goldsmith". Australian Book Review (246). Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  8. Case, Jo (June 2009). "'Reunion' by Andrea Goldsmith". The Monthly. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  9. Swinn, Louise (10 May 2019). "Invented Lives review: Andrea Goldsmith on the importance of the past". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
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