An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, but condemned it as "pedantic". However, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the nineteenth century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Roy Pascal differentiates autobiography from the periodic self-reflective mode of journal or diary writing by noting that "[autobiography] is a review of a life from a particular moment in time, while the diary, however reflective it may be, moves through a series of moments in time". Autobiography thus takes stock of the autobiographer's life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints, autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. The memoir form is closely associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self and more on others during the autobiographer's review of their own life.
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer notable for Tales of the City, a series of novels set in San Francisco.
My Family and Other Animals (1956) is an autobiographical book by British naturalist Gerald Durrell. It tells in an exaggerated and sometimes fictionalised way of the years that he lived as a child with his siblings and widowed mother on the Greek island of Corfu between 1935 and 1939. It describes the life of the Durrell family in a humorous manner, and explores the fauna of the island. It is the first and most well-known of Durrell's Corfu trilogy, which also includes Birds, Beasts, and Relatives (1969) and The Garden of the Gods (1978).
Hugh Duncan Lunn is an Australian journalist and author.
David George Joseph Malouf is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist, widely recognized as one of Australia's greatest writers. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. He also delivered the 1998 Boyer Lectures.
Absolute Beginners is a novel by Colin MacInnes, written and set in 1958 London, England. It was published in 1959. The novel is the second of MacInnes' London Trilogy, coming after City of Spades (1958) and before Mr. Love and Justice (1960). These novels are each self-contained, with no shared characters.
Così is a play by Australian playwright Louis Nowra which was first performed in 1992 at the Belvoir St Theatre in Sydney, Australia. Set in a Melbourne mental hospital in 1971, Così is semi-autobiographical, and is the sequel to his previous semi-autobiographical play, Summer of the Aliens.
The Mayne Inheritance is a non-fiction book written by Queensland author Rosamond Siemon. It was first published in 1997 by University of Queensland Press, and a new edition with updated information was issued by the same publisher in 2003. The book won the Brisbane City Council's One Book One Brisbane competition in 2003.
David Berthold is one of Australia's most prominent theatre directors and cultural leaders. He has directed for most of Australia's major theatre companies, as well as in London and Berlin, and has led several key arts organisations. He was Artistic Director of Brisbane Festival, one of Australia's major international arts festivals and Queensland’s largest arts and cultural event. Through his tenure of five festivals, 2015–19, Berthold transformed the Festival into Australia's largest major international arts festival, presenting more works to more people than any other, with an audience of more than one million people.
Nicholas Francis Ward Earls is a novelist from Brisbane, Australia, who writes humorous popular fiction about everyday life. The majority of his novels are set in his home town of Brisbane. He fronted a major Brisbane tourism campaign.
48 Shades of Brown is a young-adult novel by Australian author Nick Earls, published by Penguin Books in 1999. The novel was awarded Children's Book of the Year: Older Readers by the Children's Book Council of Australia in 2000. The novel has been adapted into a play and a film.
Fly Away Peter is a 1982 novel by Australian author David Malouf. It won The Age Book of the Year award in 1982, and is often studied at senior level in Australian high schools.
My Brother Jack is a classic 1964 Australian novel by writer George Johnston. It is part of a trilogy centering on the character of David Meredith. The other books in the trilogy are Clean Straw for Nothing and A Cartload of Clay. Its text is commonly studied for many English literature subjects in Australia.
Andrew McGahan was an Australian novelist, best known for his first novel Praise, and for his Miles Franklin Award-winning novel The White Earth. His novel Praise is considered to be part of the Australian literary genre of grunge lit.
Paul Denny is an Australian stage, television and film actor who played the lead in the international production of Johnno from the novel by David Malouf.
The White Earth is a Miles Franklin Award-winning novel by Australian author Andrew McGahan.
Philip Max Neilsen is an Australian poet, fiction writer and editor. He teaches poetry at the University of Queensland and was previously professor of creative writing at the Queensland University of Technology.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a novel by John Green and David Levithan, published in April 2010 by Dutton Juvenile. The book's narrative is divided evenly between two boys named Will Grayson, with Green having written all of the chapters for one and Levithan having written the chapters for the other, presented in an alternating chapter fashion. One boy is referred to with a capitalized letter at the start of his name, while the other is referred to in all lower case letters. The novel debuted on The New York Times children's best-seller list after its release and remained there for three weeks. It was the first LGBT-themed young adult novel to make it to that list.
Jasper Jones, is a 2009 novel by Australian writer Craig Silvey. It has won and been shortlisted for several major awards including being shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. The novel was selected by the American Library Association as 'Best Fiction for Young Adults' in their 2012 list.
La Boite Theatre is an Australian theatre company based in Brisbane, Queensland. La Boite was established in 1925 and is Australia’s longest continuously running theatre company. Playing a vital role in the cultural landscape, La Boite Theatre occupies the space between independent theatre and the state company.
