Dorothy Johnston

Dorothy Johnston (born 1948) is an Australian author of both crime and literary fiction. She has published novels, short stories and essays.

Dorothy Johnston
Born	1948 Geelong, Victoria
Language	English
Nationality	Australian
Years active	1975-
Notable works	One for the Master

Born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Johnston trained as a teacher at the University of Melbourne and later worked as a researcher in the education field.^[1] She lived in Canberra from 1979 to 2008, and currently lives in Ocean Grove, Victoria (Australia).^[2] She is a former President of Canberra PEN. She was a founding member of the Seven Writers Group,^[3] also known as Seven Writers or the Canberra Seven,^[4] established in March 1980. Five of the original members ceased with the group, but Johnston and Margaret Barbalet continued with new writers.^[5]

She was a member of Writers Against Nuclear Arms, with her novel Maralinga, My Love, focusing on the impacts of nuclear testing in Australia.^[6]

Awards and grants

• 1987 - shortlisted Miles Franklin Award for Ruth
• 1988 - highly commended ABC / ABA Bicentennial Literary Award for Maralinga, My Love
• 1988 - Australia Council fellowship^[7]
• 1991 - ACT Literary Award (grant) to complete a book of stories about life in Canberra^[8]
• 1998 - shortlisted Miles Franklin Award for One for the Master
• 2001 - joint winner ACT Book of the Year^[9] for The Trojan Dog
• 2001 - highly commended Davitt Award for The Trojan Dog

Bibliography

Novels

Her books include the Sandra Mahoney quartet of mystery novels.^[10]

Sandra Mahoney series

• The Trojan Dog (2000)
• The White Tower (2003)
• Eden (2007)
• The Fourth Season (2014)

Sea-Change Mystery series

• Through a Camel's Eye (2016)
• The Swan Island Connection (2017)

Standalone novels

• Tunnel Vision (1984)
• Ruth (1986)
• Maralinga, My Love (1988)
• One for the Master (1997)
• The House at Number 10 (2005)

Short stories

• "The New Parliament House" and "The Boatman Of Lake Burley Griffin", published in Canberra Tales: Stories (1988) (reprinted as The Division of Love: Stories, 1995); Below the Water Line (1999) and The Invisible Thread, A Hundred Years of Words (2012)
• "A Christmas Story", published in Motherlove (1996)
• "Two Wrecks", published in Best Australian Stories (2008) and Best Australian Stories: A Ten-year Collection (2011)
• "Quicksilver's Ride", published in Best Australian Stories (2009)

Essays

• "Female Sleuths And Family Matters: Can Genre and Literary Fiction Coalesce?", published in Australian Book Review (2000)
• "A Script With No Words", published in HEAT New Series 1 (2001)
• "Disturbing Undertones", published in The Griffith Review (2007)
• "But when she was bad...", published in The Australian Literary Review (2008)
• "The sounds of silence", published in The Age (2009)
• "Fiction's ever present danger", published in Spectrum (January 2011)

References

1. Johnston, Dorothy (1948 - ) (Australian Women's Archive Project) Accessed: 4 February 2007
2. "Leaving literary Canberra", published in The Canberra Times 12 January 2008
3. Randall, D'arcy "Seven Writers And Australia's Literary Capital", published in Republics of Letters: Literary Communities In Australia, Peter Kirkpatrick and Robert Dixon (Eds.) Sydney University Press, 2012, p205-216.
4. Fuller, Peter (19 July 1986). "The Canberra Seven". Canberra Times. p. 1.
5. Barbalet, Margaret (1988). Canberra tales. Ringwood, Victoria, Australia: Penguin Books Australia. p. 261. ISBN 0140111689.
6. White, Isobel (1988). "Maralinga, My Love: A Novel [Book Review]". Aboriginal History. 12: 203–205 – via Informit.
7. "Story ends on a happy note for seven authors who share in $2m Grants for Canberra writers". The Canberra Times. 29 October 1988. p. 2.
8. Hefner, Robert (13 June 1991). "Author wins award to finish book about life in Canberra". The Canberra Times. p. 10.
9. "ACT Book of the Year Winners". ACT Virtual Library. Archived from the original on 31 August 2007. Retrieved 3 September 2007.
10. Johnston, Dorothy (June 2016). "Behind the book 1: A camel, a corpse and the coast". Good Reading: 30–32 – via Informit.

External links

• Home page