Samantha Gillison (born 1967) is an Australian-born American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

who frequently contributes to

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

and

Condé Nast Traveler ''Condé Nast Traveler'' is a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine published by Condé Nast. The magazine has won 25 National Magazine Awards. The Condé Nast unit of Advance Publications purchased ''Signature'', a magazine for Diners Club memb ...

. Gillison was born in Australia, of an Australian father and Canadian mother, but has lived overseas since she was two years old, although she retains her Australian citizenship.Ben Widdicombe, "Discovered memories", ''The Weekend Australian'', 26–27 September 1998, Review, p. 8 She lived for some years in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, where her mother was doing anthropological studies and her father was a photographer. She used the PNG setting for her first novel, ''The Undiscovered Country'' (1998). She attended

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, where she majored in

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

, and has taught at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Peter Carey, who had never heard of Gillison before being sent a copy of ''The Undiscovered Country'' by her publisher, rang her to offer a very positive review for the dust jacket. In 2000, she was a recipient of the

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

for her work in ''The Undiscovered Country''.Whiting Awards - Samantha Gillison
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Works

She is the author of two

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s: *''The Undiscovered Country'', 1998. New York:

Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...

. *''The King of America: A novel'', 2004. New York:

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

. She also wrote an article for "Children's Express" when she was 11 years old. * "Samantha, The World's Youngest Anthro-ethnographer" Children's Express, 1979, New York, New York.

References

External links

Salon.com articles by Samantha GillisonProfile at The Whiting Foundation
Living people Australian women novelists American women novelists Brown University alumni Salon (website) people American women non-fiction writers 1967 births 21st-century American women {{US-journalist-1960s-stub