Glenda Guest is an Australian

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

. Her novel, '' Siddon Rock'', won the 2010

Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize (overall and regional) was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best ...

, Best First Novel.

Life

She grew up in Bruce Rock,

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, but left that state when she was in her early 20s moving, first, to Canberra, then to Melbourne when her marriage dissolved. From there she moved around the eastern seaboard with her husband Colin. Glenda is currently living in Merimbula on the far south coast of NSW. Glenda is a strong supporter of

Varuna, The Writers' House Varuna, The National Writers’ House is Australia's national residential writers' house located in Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. The former home of writers Eleanor and Eric Dark, it was gifted to the Australia ...

, where she did much of the writing for Siddon Rock. She teaches at

Macquarie University Macquarie University ( ) is a public research university based in Sydney, Australia, in the suburb of Macquarie Park. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of S ...

, and

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian s ...

Works

*''Siddon Rock'', was the creative component of Glenda's PhD undertaken at Griffith University, Gold Coast, at a time when creative writing post graduate degrees were rare. The novel takes the world literature mode of magic realism and locates it in the Australian landscape, something that had not previously been done in Australian literature. Siddon Rock was published by Random House Australia, 2009, , and then won the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Novel 2010. In that same year it was also long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, short listed for the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, short listed ABIA best newcomer and short listed for the inaugural Randwick Literary Award 2010. *''A Week in the Life of Cassandra Aberline'' (Text Publishing, Melbourne) was released on 29 January 2018.

References

External links

Glenda Guest talks about her novel ''Siddon Rock''
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Guest, Glenda 21st-century Australian novelists Australian women novelists Living people Writers from New South Wales Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian women writers