Dallas George "Dal" Stivens (31 December 1911 – 15 June 1997) was an Australian writer who produced six novels and eight collections of short stories between 1936, when ''The Tramp and Other Stories'' was published, and 1976, when his last collection ''The Unicorn and Other Tales'' was released.
Life and work
He was born in
Blayney, New South Wales
Blayney is a farming town and administrative centre with a population of 3,378 in 2016, in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. Situated on the Mid-Western Highway about west of Sydney, west of Bathurst and above sea-level, ...
, and grew up in
West Wyalong
West Wyalong is the main town of the Bland Shire in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Located west of Sydney and above sea level, it is situated on the crossroads of the Newell Highway between Melbourne and Brisbane, and th ...
where his father worked as bank manager. His observances of life in depression era country Australia were to become important to his later writing, and in particular to the folk tales for which he became famous in the 1940s and 1950s.
Stivens served in the army during the second world war, on the staff of the Australian
Department of Information. He moved to England after the war and was press officer at Australia House in London until 1950. Upon his return to Australia he became a tireless worker for the rights of authors based on the work he had observed from the Society of Authors in England. He was Foundation President of the Australian Society of Authors, in 1963
[Goodwin (1986) p. 307, 164] and was involved in the creation of the
Public Lending Right
A Public Lending Right (PLR) is a program intended to either compensate authors for the potential loss of sales from their works being available in public libraries or as a governmental support of the arts, through support of works available in p ...
in 1975.
He was also a keen semi-amateur naturalist, producing an important work in that discipline, The Incredible Egg from 1974, and having published numerous articles in major American natural journals. He gave up writing in the mid 1970s in favour of art, and from 1974 he painted a substantial amount of his time, earning a small retrospective in the magazine, Australian Art in the late 70s.
Stivens was widely read through the forties and fifties, with his stories being heavily anthologized and included in many school readers of the time. He won the Miles Franklin Award for best Australian novel in 1970 for ''A Horse of Air'' and was winner of the
Patrick White Award
The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize.
The $25,000 cash award is given to a writer who has been highly creative o ...
for 1981 for his contribution to Australian literature. In 1994, he was honoured with a Special Achievement Award in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards.
Stivens also wrote under a number of stories and many newspaper articles under the pseudonyms Jack Tarrant, John Sidney, Sam Johnson and L'Arva Street.
Stivens died in Sydney on 15 June 1997
National Library, Biographical note
/ref> after many years of domesticity in Lindfield, NSW, with Juanita Cragen, to whom he left his literary estate. On her death in 2007, Juanita left the estate to the Australian Society of Authors as the Dal Stivens Bequest. His papers are now held by the National Library of Australia in Canberra, and Fisher Library at the University of Sydney.
Bibliography
Novels
*''Jimmy Brockett
''Jimmy Brockett : Portrait of a Notable Australian'' (1951) is the debut novel by Australian writer Dal Stivens.
Story outline
Jimmy Brockett is a backstreets entrepreneur who builds a fortune from racing, boxing and newspapers. Brockett joins ...
'' (aka ''The Entrepreneur'') (1951)
*''The Wide Arch'' (1958)
*''Three Persons Make a Tiger'' (1968)
*''A Horse of Air
''A Horse of Air'' (1970) is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Dal Stivens.
Story outline
The horse of the title is said to make reference to the Australian Aboriginal term for the night parrot. When horses where first ...
'' (1970)
*''Well Anyway'' (written 1930s, published 2012)
Children's
*''The Bushranger'' (1978)
Short story collections
*''The Tramp and Other Stories'' (1936)
*''The Courtship of Uncle Henry'' (1946)
*''The Gambling Ghost and Other Tales'' (1953)
*''Ironbark Bill'' (1955)
*''The Scholarly Mouse and Other Tales'' (1957)
*''Selected Stories 1936–1968'' (1969)
*''The Unicorn and Other Tales'' (1976)
*''The Demon Bowler and Other Cricket Stories'' (1979)
Non-fiction
*''The Incredible Egg'' (natural history, 1974)
Edited
*''Coast to Coast: Australian stories 1957–1958'' (1958)
Notes
References
*Goodwin, Ken (1986) ''A History of Australian Literature'' ("Macmillan History of Literature" series), Basingstoke, Macmillan
Dal Stivens Bequest
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stivens, Dal
1911 births
1997 deaths
Australian Army personnel of World War II
Australian male short story writers
Miles Franklin Award winners
Patrick White Award winners
20th-century Australian novelists
Australian male novelists
20th-century Australian short story writers
20th-century Australian male writers