


Annie and Ida Rentoul, the early years
by Whispering Gums Another in our series of juvenilia posts, this one on the sisters, Annie and Ida Rentoul Australia has several bookish sisters, and we have featured some of them here, including Louise and Amy Mack, and Ethel and Lilian Turner. Annie and Ida...
Christina Stead, A Writer’s Friends
“It was accepted by this time at school that I was a writer; and I accepted it simply, too, without thinking about it.”

Jean Curlewis, The lonely lady (short story)
by Jean Curlewis (1898-1930) A maiden lady discovers a cure for loneliness. At the post-office Miss Eldridge felt suddenly even more lonely than usual. She collected the magazine which constituted her entire mail, and turned wistfully away from the little social...
Jean Curlewis
by Debbie Robson. .. more than anything what I value now, looking back on each of the novels (wishing she hadn’t died so young) is the way Curlewis evokes place

‘Countless Flaming Eyes’: The Genius of Christina Stead
by Meg Brayshaw. .. she saw insistently, with the countless flaming eyes of her flesh, the inner life of these unfortunate women and girls, her acquaintance

Jessie Urquhart, Hodden Grey (short story)
by Jessie Urquhart (1890-1948) A rural short story from 1930. It was hot work hilling potatoes. Raking the dry clods of earth about the milky stalks, with the sun pressing closer and closer, like the lid of an iron box, on the top of one’s head, and the...
Jessie Urquhart, the jail governor’s daughter
by Elizabeth Lhuede Rediscovering Jessie Urquhart (1890-1948), another of our forgotten Australian women writers. In 1935, Zora Cross published an article, “Australian women who write”, in which she refers to many whose names will be familiar to readers of Australian...
Christina Stead, Ocean of story, Pt 1: The early years – Australia (Review)
by Whispering Gums Another post on a piece from the collection of Christina Stead stories, Ocean of Story. Today’s post continues our project of reviewing Ocean of story: The uncollected stories of Christina Stead, which was edited by R.G. Geering and...
Louisa Lawson
“And why shouldn’t a woman be tall and strong?”