Danielle Wood

The Alphabet of Light and Dark

You make deals with God. You make deals with the Devil. You're not fussy. But as a wise man once said: It's the saying you don't care what you get what gets you jiggered. So you say it, and you're jiggered, but what you give birth to is a hedgehog. It's prickly and its cry is a noise so terrible that you wish someone would scrape fingernails on a blackboard to give you some relief. In a fairytale, the only good mother is six feet under. All the others are bad news. A fairytale mother will exchange her first-born child for a handful of leafy greens. And if times get tough, she'll walk her babes into the woods and leave them there. But mothers of today do no such things? Do they? In this collection of heart-breakingly honest stories, the mothers of the Brothers Grimm are brought - with wit, subversiveness and lyrical prose - into the here and now. Danielle Wood turns four fairytales on their heads and makes them exquisitely her own.

Mothers Grimm

A collection of cautionary tales on such topics as virginity, commitment, love, work, longing, loss, and destiny.

Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls

These are not, I should say at the outset, tales written for the benefit of good and well-behaved girls who always stick to the path when they go to Grandma's. Skipping along in their gingham frills - basket of scones, jam and clotted cream upon their arms - what need can these girls have for caution? Rather, these are tales for girls who have boots as stout as their hearts, and who are prepared to firmly lace them up (boots and hearts both) and step out into the wilds in search of what they desire. Taking her cues from the Brothers Grimm and Scheherazade, Rosie - a thoroughly modern Little Red Riding Hood - tells us of love and desire, men and women, heartache and happiness. Beguiling, clever and funny, Rosie Little's Cautionary Tales for Girls is a sheer delight. ss, wit, simplicity and directness, Rosie offers her clear-eyed, slyly funny and rueful take on life, love and everything in between.

Housewife Superstar is the life story of eccentric Tasmanian domestic goddess, Marjorie Bligh. Now 94 years old, Marjorie is the author of a library of advice books covering topics including food, household management, health and beauty, poetry, gardening and recycling. Marjorie is the go-to-girl for all manner of problem-solving. She knows what to do when a goldfish has constipation (feed it Epsom salts), and what to do when you run out of rouge (cut a beetroot in half and slap it on your cheeks). Famous for never wasting a thing, Marjorie has constructed a museum within her own home to show off the various items she has knitted and crocheted out of such unlikely materials as plastic shopping bags and used pantyhose. Her abundant garden is staked out with old-fashioned corset brassieres that function as plant protectors. Sensationally thrice-married (once divorced and twice widowed), Marjorie is, according to her colossal fan Barry Humphries, 'no slouch in the matrimonial department'. Her short-lived second marriage, to preacher and schoolteacher Adrian Cooper, was punctuated by endless love notes, breakfasts in bed and territorial catfights with Adrian's adult daughters. Following Adrian's death, Marjorie met her third husband Eric Bligh – a bus driver – on a CWA outing, snagging him with promises of fruitcake and flirtatious glances in his rear view mirror. Housewife Superstar is an illuminating look at a true Australian treasure. Marjorie Bligh will soon be a household name.

The Very Best of Marjorie Bligh

Housewife Superstar

Ralph Crane

A handsome full-colour book pairing unique items from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery with selections of original writing about the southern island. Indigenous dispossession, a cruel penal history, gay-rights battles; exceptional landscapes, unusual wildlife, environmental activism; colonial architecture, arts and crafts, a thriving creative scene—all are part of the story of Tasmania. And they find their expression in the unparalleled collection of Hobart’s TMAG. In Island Story, Ralph Crane and Danielle Wood select almost sixty representative TMAG objects: from shell necklaces to a convict cowl, colonial scrimshaw to a thylacine pincushion, contemporary photography to a film star’s travelling case. Each is matched to texts old and new, by writers as diverse as Anthony Trollope, Marie Bjelke-Petersen, Helene Chung, Jim Everett, Heather Rose and Ben Walter. This is the perfect gift for anyone interested in the island everyone is talking about. Ralph Crane is the author or editor of more than twenty academic books. He lives in Hobart and is Professor of English at the University of Tasmania. Danielle Wood is the author of The Alphabet of Light and Dark, Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls, Mothers Grimm and two non-fiction books on Marjorie Bligh, and co-author of the Angelica Banks series. She lives in Hobart and teaches at the University of Tasmania. ‘While the twenty-four stories in this beautiful anthology range from colonial to contemporary times, they have a common theme—a pervading sense of the landscape.’ Age on Deep South ‘The collection is strong...The editors pull no punches.’ Sun-Herald on Deep South ‘Offers readers a glimpse into the imagery and symbolism that has come to shape how outsiders perceive the island.’ Australian on Deep South

Tasmania in Object and Text

Island Story

'Danielle Wood has turned four well-known fairy tales inside out and upside down, shaking out their secrets in order to illuminate the hidden fears and desires of four very modern women. Psychologically acute and mordantly witty, the stories in 'Mothers Grimm' unsettle the reader with their too-close-to-the-bone truths one moment, and cause a wry smile of recognition the next.' Kate Forsyth, bestselling author of Bitter Greens You make deals with God. You make deals with the Devil. You're not fussy. But as a wise man once said: It's the saying you don't care what you get what gets you jiggered." So you say it, and you're jiggered, but what you give birth to is a hedgehog. It's prickly and its cry is a noise so terrible that you wish someone would scrape fingernails on a blackboard to give you some relief. In a fairytale, the only good mother is six feet under. All the others are bad news. A fairytale mother will exchange her first-born child for a handful of leafy greens. And if times get tough, she'll walk her babes into the woods and leave them there. But mothers of today do no such things. Do they? In this collection of heart-breakingly honest stories, the mothers of the Brothers Grimm are brought - with wit, subversiveness and lyrical prose - into the here and now. Danielle Wood turns four fairytales on their heads and makes them exquisitely her own. "

Tony Wood

John Daley

Stephen Duckett

Peter Goss

Marion Terrill

Brendan Coates

Andrew Norton

The Commonwealth Orange Book rates Australiaâs performance against similar countries and proposes policy reforms to schools and universities, hospitals and housing, roads and railways, cities and regions, budgets and taxes, retirement incomes and climate change. It includes Grattan Instituteâs new âInternational Scorecardâ, which shows Australians live longer than most other people, and public debt is relatively low. But our electricity supply is more polluting, less reliable and more expensive than in comparable countries; we lag behind other developed economies on school results; and housing costs and homelessness are relatively high. The challenge for the next Commonwealth Government is to revive Australiaâs proud tradition of enlightened public policy. The next government needs to choose to do less, but deliver more. We can continue to be the lucky country, but we must make our own luck. On school education, it suggests that the government needs to finish off school funding reforms, and set up a national evidence institute, while strengthening incentives for universities to improve initial teacher education. On higher education, it recommends a return to demand-driven funding of universities. Reforms to the HELP loan scheme are needed to help fund this change, and potential increases in funding for vocational education. The government should encourage more students into vocational education, although better funding arrangements for vocational education need careful thought and negotiations with the states. [Overview, ed]

Commonwealth Orange Book

Policy Priorities for States and Territories

State Orange Book 2018

Alistair Dermer

There are few places today that are truly wild. Macquarie Island is still one such place-a small, wind-blasted rocky outcrop between Tasmania and Antarctica. In exquisite pictures and words, A Hostile Beauty tells the story of this extraordinary Australian outpost teeming with life. Alistair Dermer's stunning photography gives us an up-close look at the lives of the inhabitants: gentle gentoo penguins, engorged elephant-seal bulls and scavenging skuas, and takes us deep into a landscape that is as beautiful and life-giving as it is hostile and pitiless. Let these superb images, from the fury of the squalling Southern Ocean to the warm, trusting eyes of a seal pup, transport you to one of the most remote and spectacular places on Earth.

Life on Macquarie Island

A Hostile Beauty

Heather Rose

Angelica Banks

'I cannot hold the worlds apart much longer. Have you found our answer? G.' Vivienne Small's world is under threat. A Winged Dog has fallen from the sky bearing an ominous note and vercaka have invaded the City of Clocks. Meanwhile in the real world, famous writers are turning up far from home, injured and confused, and Tuesday McGillycuddy and Serendipity Smith - the most famous writer of all - could be next! Suddenly whisked away to the world of story, Tuesday must learn the identity of the mysterious G, and find out why he is losing control of the worlds. But how can Tuesday, Vivienne and Baxterr solve the mystery and end the mayhem without losing themselves? An utterly charming, action-packed sequel to the marvellous and magical Finding Serendipity.

A Week without Tuesday

And as the waves take her apart, piece by piece, she watches the message of the lighthouse spelling itself out on the surface of the water. Its message is composed in the alphabet of light and dark. Flash, eclipse, flash, eclipse. If we see only the light, we are blinded; only the dark and we will never find our way. A tiny coin found inside a Cloudy Bay oyster, a postcard of a white-haired child leaning against a beached dinghy and a coconut peeled and carved once upon a time on the Batavian coast. These trinkets, found in a sea chest, and the fragmented memories of her grandfather's tall tales are all Essie Lewis has left of her family history. After her grandfather's death, Essie returns to Bruny Island, Tasmania and to the lighthouse where her great-great-grandfather kept watch for nearly 40 years. Beneath the lighthouse, she begins to write the stories of her ancestors. But the island is also home to Pete Shelverton, a sculptor who hunts feral cats to make his own peace with the past. And as Essie writes, she finds that Pete is a part of the history she can never escape. 'Absorbing, subtle, impressive writing.' Debra Adelaide 'Wood's writing is sinewy, physical and elemental.' Liam Davison riting.' Debra Adelaide 'Its lyrical probing of several dimensions of Australian/Tasmanian experience make it a fitting recipient for this award. Wood's achievement in her sustained evocation of the bleak Bruny Island landscape and the surrounding seascape is tremendously potent and effective.' Stella Clarke 'The author has that special quality which just jumps off the page. The voice is strong and the sense of place so powerful.' James Bradley 'Wood's writing is sinewy, physical and elemental. She is very good when it comes to the melding of family mythology, storytelling, and colonial history into something which serves a range of purposes. A novel about history rather than a historical novel.' Liam Davison

Danielle Wood

About

Books

Join the club