Dorothy Johnston Explained

Dorothy Johnston
Birth Date:	1948
Birth Place:	Geelong, Victoria
Language:	English
Nationality:	Australian
Notableworks:	One for the Master
Years Active:	1975-

Dorothy Johnston (born 1948) is an Australian author of both crime and literary fiction. She has published novels, short stories and essays.

Born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Johnston trained as a teacher at the University of Melbourne and later worked as a researcher in the education field.^[1] She lived in Canberra from 1979 to 2008, and currently lives in Ocean Grove, Victoria (Australia).^[2] She is a former President of Canberra PEN. She was a founding member of the Seven Writers Group,^[3] also known as Seven Writers or the Canberra Seven,^[4] established in March 1980. Five of the original members ceased with the group, but Johnston and Margaret Barbalet continued with new writers.^[5]

She was a member of Writers Against Nuclear Arms, with her novel Maralinga, My Love, focusing on the impacts of nuclear testing in Australia.^[6]

Awards and grants

• 1987 - shortlisted Miles Franklin Award for Ruth
• 1988 - highly commended ABC / ABA Bicentennial Literary Award for Maralinga, My Love
• 1988 - Australia Council fellowship^[7]
• 1991 - ACT Literary Award (grant) to complete a book of stories about life in Canberra^[8]
• 1998 - shortlisted Miles Franklin Award for One for the Master
• 2001 - joint winner ACT Book of the Year^[9] for The Trojan Dog
• 2001 - highly commended Davitt Award for The Trojan Dog

Bibliography

Novels

Her books include the Sandra Mahoney quartet of mystery novels.^[10]

Sandra Mahoney series

• The Trojan Dog (2000)
• The White Tower (2003)
• Eden (2007)
• The Fourth Season (2014)

Sea-Change Mystery series

• Through a Camel's Eye (2016)
• The Swan Island Connection (2017)

Standalone novels

• Tunnel Vision (1984)
• Ruth (1986)
• Maralinga, My Love (1988)
• One for the Master (1997)
• The House at Number 10 (2005)

Short stories

• "The New Parliament House" and "The Boatman Of Lake Burley Griffin", published in Canberra Tales: Stories (1988) (reprinted as The Division of Love: Stories, 1995); Below the Water Line (1999) and The Invisible Thread, A Hundred Years of Words (2012)
• "A Christmas Story", published in Motherlove (1996)
• "Two Wrecks", published in Best Australian Stories (2008) and Best Australian Stories: A Ten-year Collection (2011)
• "Quicksilver's Ride", published in Best Australian Stories (2009)

Essays

• "Female Sleuths And Family Matters: Can Genre and Literary Fiction Coalesce?", published in Australian Book Review (2000)
• "A Script With No Words", published in HEAT New Series 1 (2001)
• "Disturbing Undertones", published in The Griffith Review (2007)
• "But when she was bad...", published in The Australian Literary Review (2008)
• "The sounds of silence", published in The Age (2009)
• "Fiction's ever present danger", published in Spectrum (January 2011)

External links

• Home page

Notes and References

1. http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2115b.htm Johnston, Dorothy (1948 -)
2. "Leaving literary Canberra", published in The Canberra Times 12 January 2008
3. Randall, D'arcy "Seven Writers And Australia's Literary Capital", published in Republics of Letters: Literary Communities In Australia, Peter Kirkpatrick and Robert Dixon (Eds.) Sydney University Press, 2012, p205-216.
4. News: The Canberra Seven. Fuller. Peter. 19 July 1986. Canberra Times. 1.
5. Book: Barbalet, Margaret. Canberra tales. Penguin Books Australia. 1988. 0140111689. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia. 261.
6. White. Isobel. 1988. Maralinga, My Love: A Novel [Book Review]. Aboriginal History. 12. 203–205. Informit.
7. News: Story ends on a happy note for seven authors who share in $2m Grants for Canberra writers. 29 October 1988. The Canberra Times. 2.
8. News: Author wins award to finish book about life in Canberra. Hefner. Robert. 13 June 1991. The Canberra Times. 10.
9. Web site: ACT Book of the Year Winners . ACT Virtual Library . 2007-09-03 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070831125605/http://www.library.act.gov.au/find/history/frequentlyaskedquestions/literaryawards/literaryawards2 . 2007-08-31 . dead .
10. Johnston. Dorothy. June 2016. Behind the book 1: A camel, a corpse and the coast. Good Reading. 30–32. Informit.