On Saturday 19 August 2017, as part of the Honouring Australian Writers series, Writing NSW celebrated the life and work of author Jessica Anderson (1916 – 2010). Anderson is the author of two Miles Franklin Award-winning novels, Tirra Lirra by the River and The Impersonators, which also won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. Her body of work includes seven published novels, an award-winning short story collection, and numerous radio plays.

If you want to read her work, Text Publishing has reprinted editions of The Commandant with an introduction by Carmen Callil, and Pan Macmillan Australia has reprinted editions of Tirra Lirra by the River.

Biographies/Academic Writing

Adelaide, Debra. ‘Jessica Anderson’ in Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide. 3.

Barlow, Damien. ‘The Queerness of Jessica Anderson’s Fiction’ Southerley, Vol. 72, No. 1, 2012: 136-152.

Barry, Elaine. Fabricating the Self: The Fictions of Jessica Anderson. St. Lucia, UQP: 1996.

Barry, Elaine. ‘The Expatriate Vision of Jessica Anderson’ Meridian, Vol. 3, No. 1, 1984: p. 3-11.

Gilbert, Pam. Coming Out from Under: Contemporary Australian Women Writers. Sydney: Pandora, 1988, p. 133.

Gleeson White, Jane. ‘Tirra Lirra by the River’ in Australian Classics: 50 Great Writers and Their Celebrated Work. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2007, p. 212.

Samuels, Selina. ‘Jessica Anderson’ in A Reader’s Companion to the Short Story in English, edited by Erin Fallon et al., 19–28. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Sheridan, Susan. ‘”Cranford at Moreton bay”‘: Jessica Anderson’s The Commandant’ Southerly, Vol. 72, No. 1, 2012: 121-135.

Sheridan, Susan. ‘Tirra Lirra and beyond: Jessica Anderson’s Truthful Fictions’ Australian Book Review, Vol. 324, 2010: p. 48.

Sykes, Arlene. ‘Jessica Anderson: Arrivals and Places’ Southerly, Vol. 46, No. 1, 1986: 57.

Obituary for Jessica Anderson from the Australia Council for the Arts

Articles/Interviews

Candida Baker interviews Anderson for her book Yacker 2: Australian Writers Talk About Their Work (Picador, 1987)

Ray Willbanks interviews Anderson for his book Australian Voices: Writers and Their Work (University of Texas Press, 2014)

Claire Corbett for Overland: Jessica Anderson’s ‘Tirra Lirra by the River’

Claire Corbett for The Conversation: The Case for the Commandant by Jessica Anderson

Anna Funder for Sydney Morning Herald: Rooms of their own: Anna Funder on Tirra Lirra by the River

Anna Funder for Meanjin: What I Owe

Jane Gleeson White for Overland: Farewell Jessica Anderson (1916 – 2010) – and thanks

Kerryn Goldsworthy for Reading Australia: Tirra Lirra by the River

Rosalie Ham chats with Texts in the City host Lili Wilkinson on Tirra Lirra by the River at the Wheeler Centre in 2013.

Geordie Williamson chats with ABC Radio 702 Bookclub on Tirra Lirra by the River in 2010.