Wild Surmise
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Wild Surmise
''Wild Surmise'' is a 2002 verse novel by Australian poet Dorothy Porter which was shortlisted for the 2003 Miles Franklin Award. Notes * Dedication: For Andy * Epigraph: 'There felt I like some watcher of the skies, When a new planet swims into his ken; or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes, he stared at the Pacific - and all his men loo'd at each other with a wild surmise -' - 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.' John Keats * Epigraph: 'Behold now, standing before you, the man who has pierced the air and penetrated the sky, wended his way amongst the stars and overpassed the margins of the world. - 'La Cena de le Ceneri.' Giordano Bruni (1548-1600). Adaptation This novel was adapted for the stage by Jane Montgomery Griffiths and directed by Marion Potts. Performances of the play were held at the Malthouse Theatre, in Melbourne, in November and December 2012. Reviews * ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' Awards and nominations * 2003 shortlisted Miles Franklin Lite ...
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Dorothy Porter
Dorothy Featherstone Porter (26 March 1954 – 10 December 2008) was an Australian poet. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. Early life Porter was born in Sydney. Her father was barrister Chester Porter and her mother, Jean, was a high school chemistry teacher. Porter attended the Queenwood School for Girls. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 1975 with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and History. Works and awards Porter's awards include The Age Book of the Year for poetry, the National Book Council Award for ''The Monkey's Mask'' and the FAW Christopher Brennan Award for poetry. Two of her verse novels were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award: ''What a Piece of Work'' in 2000 and '' Wild Surmise'' in 2003. In 2000, the film ''The Monkey's Mask'' was made from her verse novel of the same name. In 2005, her libretto '' The Eternity Man'', co-written with composer Jonathan Mills, was performed at th ...
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Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ...
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Picador (imprint)
Picador is an imprint of Pan Macmillan in the United Kingdom and Australia and of Macmillan Publishing in the United States. Both companies are owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. Picador was launched in the UK in 1972 by renowned publisher Sonny Mehta as a literary imprint of Pan Books with the aim of publishing outstanding international writing in paperback editions only. In 1990, Picador started publishing its own hardcovers. Picador in the UK continues to publish writers from all over the world, bringing international authors to an English-language readership and providing a platform for voices that are often not heard. The Picador list in the UK includes literary fiction; new, relevant and challenging fiction; narrative non-fiction; authoritative, cultural non-fiction; and the best contemporary poetry including former Poet Laureate Dame Carol Ann Duffy and Kae Tempest, 2013 winner of the Ted Hughes Award for their work ''Brand New Ancients''. Picador is the ho ...
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Paperback
A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with adhesive, glue rather than stitch (textile arts), stitches or Staple (fastener), staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellow-backs, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. Paperb ...
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What A Piece Of Work
''What a Piece of Work'' is a 1999 verse novel by Australian poet Dorothy Porter which was shortlisted for the 2000 Miles Franklin Award. Notes * Dedication: for Judith Beveridge * Epigraph: What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god. William Shakespeare, ''Hamlet'' * All the stages or processes of alchemy are distinguished by colours ... Latin alchemists nearly always commence with the nigredo, the dark, black stage of melancholy, death and mortification. Mark Haeffner, ''Dictionary of Alchemy'' * For it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself. C.G.Jung, ''Mysterium Conjunctionis'' Author's notes In an address to the Tasmanian Writers' and Readers' festival in August 1999, Porter stated: "This is a verse novel in the voice of a male psychiatrist, Doctor Peter Cyren, working in Sydney' ...
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Verse Novel
A verse novel is a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Either simple or complex stanzaic verse-forms may be used, but there will usually be a large cast, multiple voices, dialogue, narration, description, and action in a novelistic manner. History Verse narratives are as old as the ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', the ''Iliad'', and the ''Odyssey'', but the verse novel is a distinct modern form. Although the narrative structure is similar to that of a novella, the organisation of the story is usually in a series of short sections, often with changing perspectives. Verse novels are often told with multiple narrators, potentially providing readers with a view into the inner workings of the characters' minds. Some verse novels, following Byron's mock-heroic ''Don Juan'' (1818–24) employ an informal, colloquial register. ''Eugene Onegin'' (1831) by Alexander Pushkin is a classical example, and with '' Pan Tadeu ...
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Miles Franklin Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic ''My Brilliant Career'' (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued A$60,000. __TOC__ Winners Controversies Author Frank Moorhouse was disqualified from consideration for his novel Grand Days because the story was set in Europe during the 1920s and was not sufficiently Australian. 1995 winner Helen Darville, also known as Helen Demidenko and Helen Dale, won for The Hand that signed the Paper and sparked a debate about authenticity in Australian literature. Darville claimed to be of Ukrainian descent and said it was fiction based on family history. Writer David Marr, who presented the award to her said that revelations about her true ba ...
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Marion Potts
Marion Potts is an Australian theatre director. At the University of Sydney, she joined the Sydney University Dramatic Society and contemplated a career in theatre after studying theatre symbiotics with an inspiring female academic. She studied directing at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. She has directed productions for many of Australia's major theatre companies including Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, Malthouse Theatre, State Theatre Company of South Australia, Griffin Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare and Victorian Opera. Potts was a Resident Director for the Sydney Theatre Company from 1995 to 1999. She was Bell Shakespeare’s Associate Artistic Director and Artistic Director of its development arm, Mind’s Eye, from 2005 to 2010. She was Artistic Director of the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne from 2010 to 2015. She became Director of Theatre with the Australia Council in 2015. Potts received the Helpmann Award for ...
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Malthouse Theatre
Malthouse Theatre is the resident theatre company of The Malthouse building in Southbank, part of the Melbourne Arts Precinct. In the 1980s it was known as the Playbox Theatre Company and was housed in the Playbox Theatre in Melbourne's CBD. A multidisciplinary contemporary theatre, Malthouse Theatre produces and/or presents many productions annually, from drama and comedy to contemporary opera, music theatre and cabaret, to contemporary dance and physical theatre. The Company regularly co-produces with local and national performing arts companies and tours nationally and internationally. Malthouse Theatre productions have been performed internationally includingthe ''Solaris'', a new play by David Greig adapted from Stanisław Lem’s novel at The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, in 2019 and and ''Picnic at Hanging Rock'', in 2018 adapted by Tom Wright and directed by Matthew Lutton at the Barbican Centre in London. Nationally touring works include th production ''W ...
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Miles Franklin Literary Award
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic ''My Brilliant Career'' (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued A$60,000. __TOC__ Winners Controversies Author Frank Moorhouse was disqualified from consideration for his novel Grand Days because the story was set in Europe during the 1920s and was not sufficiently Australian. 1995 winner Helen Darville, also known as Helen Demidenko and Helen Dale, won for The Hand that signed the Paper and sparked a debate about authenticity in Australian literature. Darville claimed to be of Ukrainian descent and said it was fiction based on family history. Writer David Marr, who presented the award to her said that revelations about her true ba ...
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Adelaide Festival Awards For Literature
The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia, announced during Adelaide Writers' Week, as part of the Adelaide Festival. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four. History and description The Awards were created by the South Australian government in 1986. They are currently administered by the State Library of South Australia and awarded during Writers' Week as part of the Adelaide Festival. The Premier's Award is the richest prize, worth , and awarded for the best overall published work which has already won an award in one of the other categories. Other national awards, worth each as of 2018, are the Fiction Award, Children's Literature Award, Young Adult's Fiction Award, John Bray Poetry Award, and the Non-Fiction Award. South Austral ...
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