Stephanie Dowrick

Last updated

Reverend
Stephanie Dowrick
Author Stephanie Dowrick.jpg
Dowrick in December 2013
Born
Stephanie Dowrick

(1947-06-02) 2 June 1947 (age 76)
Wellington, New Zealand
EducationPhD
Alma mater Victoria University of Wellington
University of Western Sydney
OccupationWriter
PartnerDr Paul Anthony Bauert
ChildrenTwo
Website stephaniedowrick.com

Stephanie Dowrick (born 2 June 1947) is an Australian writer, Interfaith Minister and social activist. She is the author of more than 20 books of fiction and non-fiction, five of them best-sellers. [1] She was a publisher in Australia and the UK, where she co-founded The Women's Press, London. [2]

Contents

Background

Stephanie Dowrick was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on 2 June 1947. [3] Her mother, Estelle Mary Dowrick (née Brisco, daughter of 7th baronet Sir Hylton Musgrave Campbell Brisco), died in 1955. [4] [5]

As a child, Dowrick went to a number of primary schools, then to Sacred Heart College in Lower Hutt for her secondary education, leaving school at the age of 16. [6] Dowrick left New Zealand in 1967, lived for some months in Israel, then lived in Europe from 1967–1983, mainly in London, but also from 1970–71 in West Berlin. [7] She became a Roman Catholic at the age of nine after the death of her mother and her father's remarriage. As an adult she was for many years a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). [4]

Since 1983, she has lived in Sydney with her family. [8] [9]

Dowrick was an Adjunct Fellow with the Writing and Society Research Group at Western Sydney University, [10] where she graduated with a PhD degree in 2008. [11] She was ordained by the New Seminary, New York, where she graduated in 2005 (The New Seminary institution is not accredited or recognised by the U.S. Department of Education) [12] [13]

Career

Publishing and The Women's Press

Dowrick was an editor and publisher at George G. Harrap and Co., London, [14] the New English Library, [14] and Triad Paperbacks. [15]

In 1977, Dowrick co-founded the independent feminist publishing house, The Women's Press, from her home in East London, [16] [17] [2] with financial backing from entrepreneur Naim Attallah. [14]

The Women's Press was "a political press" explicitly linked with the Women's Movement. [2] [14] Along with Virago publishers, founded by Australian Carmen Callil, The Women's Press was the largest feminist publisher in the English language during the key period of the second wave of the women's liberation movement, largely considered to have run from 1969 to the mid-1980s. [18]

Among the first books published by The Women's Press in 1978 were titles by Alice Munro (Lives of Girls and Women), [19] Sylvia Townsend Warner (Lolly Willowes: or, The loving huntsman), [20] [21] and Michèle Roberts ( A Piece of the Night ). [22]

The Women's Press published other influential 20th-century feminist writers, including Alice Walker, [23] whose Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple "transformed African-American literature", [24] Janet Frame, [25] [26] Andrea Dworkin, [27] Lucy Goodison, Joanna Ryan, May Sarton, Susan Griffin and Lisa Alther.

Dowrick was Chair of The Women's Press Board of Directors from 1989 to 1997. [28] She was later Chairperson of The Women's Press, [29] before its amalgamation with Quartet Books.

Dowrick was the first winner of Women in Publishing's Pandora Award in 1981. [30]

Dowrick worked for Allen & Unwin, Sydney, from 1989 to 1992, as their founding part-time Fiction Publisher. [31]

Psychotherapy

Dowrick had a small private psychotherapy practice for many years. [32]

Writing

From 1983, writing became Dowrick's primary work. [33] Her books includes fiction and non-fiction for children and adults.

Dowrick's first novel, Running Backwards Over Sand (1985), [34] was autobiographical in part with the book's protagonist Zoe Delightey's mother dying at an early age. [35] [36]

In a review of Choosing Happiness (2006), The Age newspaper wrote: "Dowrick's gift is to bring the sacred into the mundane." [37] Everyday Kindness (2011) was described in The Sydney Morning Herald as "the practical expression of her spiritual ethic." [17]

Dowrick's more explicitly spiritual books include Seeking the Sacred (2010), [38] [39] and In the Company of Rilke, a scholarly spiritual study of the work of the European poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. [40]

Spirituality

Dowrick has been described as a "pioneering individual" in interfaith, post-denominational spirituality. [41] Her spiritual journey has included Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity, [42] [43] and her influences include Ven Thich Nhat Hanh, Dom Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, and Irish poet John O'Donohue. [42]

In June 2005, Dowrick became one of Australia's first Interfaith Ministers. [43] She trained at the New Seminary, New York, an interfaith seminary founded in 1979 by Rabbi Joseph Gelberman. [44] [43]

Since 2006, Dowrick has led an interfaith spiritually inclusive congregation in Sydney, Australia. [45] Since 2000, she has led retreats in New Zealand.

Media

Dowrick has contributed to Australia's literary and media culture over many years. [46]

She is a literary journalist and columnist for Fairfax Media on issues of ethics and social justice, [47] feminism, [48] spirituality, [49] and refugees in Australia. [50]

She has appeared as a regular guest on ABC Radio on a range of programmes including Life Matters, [51] The Spirit of Things, [52] All in the Mind, [53] and Tony Delroy's NightLife. From 1995 to 2004, she was "On the Couch" presenter on ABC Radio National's Life Matters. From 2001 to 2010, she was the "Inner Life" columnist for Good Weekend Magazine (The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age).

She was an ambassador and well-being presenter for Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA). [54] [55]

She is an ambassador for the International Women's Development Agency (IWDA). [56]

Awards

Works

Nonfiction

Fiction

Children's

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Funder</span> Australian author (born 1966)

Anna Funder is an Australian author. She is the author of Stasiland, All That I Am, the novella The Girl With the Dogs and Wifedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Cohen (Australian author)</span> Contemporary Australian novelist

Bernard Cohen is an Australian writer, the author of five novels, a book of short stories and a children's picture book.

Helen Razer is a Melbourne-born and Canberra-raised radio presenter and writer. She is the author of four non-fiction books and a columnist with the Australian version of The Big Issue, Melbourne newspaper The Age and contributor to the monthly magazine Cherrie and weekly newspaper The Saturday Paper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Miller (writer)</span> Australian novelist

Alexander McPhee Miller is an Australian novelist. Miller is twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, in 1993 for The Ancestor Game and in 2003 for Journey to the Stone Country. He won the overall award for the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for The Ancestor Game in 1993. He is twice winner of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Christina Stead Prize for Conditions of Faith in 2001 and for Lovesong in 2011. In recognition of his impressive body of work and in particular for his novel Autumn Laing he was awarded the Melbourne Prize for Literature in 2012.

Tegan Bennett Daylight is an Australian writer of novels and short stories. She is best known as a fiction writer, teacher and critic, publishing both books of non-fiction and numerous short stories. She has also written several books for children and teenagers. She is the author of Bombora (1996), What Falls Away (2001) and Safety (2006).

Antonella Gambotto-Burke is an Italian-Australian author, journalist and singer-songwriter based in Kent, England, known for her writing about sex, death and motherhood.

Caroline Overington is an Australian journalist and author. Overington has written 13 books. She has twice won the Walkley Award for investigative journalism, as well as winning the Sir Keith Murdoch prize for journalism (2007), the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize (2008) and the Davitt Award for Crime Writing (2015).

Andrea Goldsmith is an Australian writer and novelist, known for her 2002 novel The Prosperous Thief.

Densey Clyne was an Australian naturalist, photographer, writer, and documentarian. She is especially well known for her studies of spiders and insects. Clyne worked as a researcher, writer, narrator and/or adviser on a number of productions in partnership with cinematographer Jim Frazier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tara June Winch</span> Australian writer

Tara June Winch is an Australian writer. She is the 2020 winner of the Miles Franklin Award for her book The Yield.

The Barbara Jefferis Award is an Australian literary award prize. The award was created in 2007 after being endowed by John Hinde upon his death to commemorate his late wife, author Barbara Jefferis. It is funded by his $1 million bequest. Originally an annual award, it has been awarded biennially since 2012.

David Astle is an Australian TV personality and radio host, and writer of non-fiction, fiction and plays. He also co-hosted the SBS Television (SBS) show Letters and Numbers, as the dictionary expert, in company with Richard Morecroft and Lily Serna, a role to which he returned for Celebrity Letters and Numbers in 2021.

Verity Nancy Burgmann is Adjunct Professor of Politics in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University and Honorary Professorial Fellow in the eScholarship Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, where she is Director of the Reason in Revolt website. In 2013 she was Ludwig Hirschfeld Mack Visiting Professor of Australian Studies in the Institut für Englische Philologie at the Freie Universität Berlin.

Sophie Cunningham is an Australian writer and editor based in Melbourne. She is the current Chair of the Board of the Australian Society of Authors, the national peak body representing Australian authors.

Peter Robert Corris was an Australian academic, historian, journalist and a novelist of historical and crime fiction. As crime fiction writer, he was described as "the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing", particularly for his Cliff Hardy novels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather Rose</span> Australian author

Heather Rose is an Australian author born in Hobart, Tasmania. She is the author of the acclaimed memoir Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here. She is best known for her novels The Museum of Modern Love, which won the 2017 Stella Prize, and Bruny (2019), which won Best General Fiction in the 2020 Australian Book Industry Awards. She has also worked in advertising, business, and the arts.

Patti Miller, an Australian writer, was born and grew up near Wellington, New South Wales, Australia. She holds a BA (Communications) and an MA (Writing) from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). She is the author of ten books and numerous articles and essays published in national newspapers and literary magazines. She has taught literature and writing at UTS, University of Western Sydney, Australian Writers' Centre and other writers’ centres and is the founder and director of its Life Stories Workshop, which aims to develop and support memoir and creative non-fiction writing. Miller is a member of the Australian Society of Authors.

Candida Baker is an Australian author, photographer, journalist and natural horsemanship practitioner. She was born in England and moved to Australia in 1977.

Kate Richards is an Australian writer, doctor and medical researcher. She writes and speaks about her experiences with mental illness, and is the author of two books on the subject.

Josephine Moon is an Australian author, based in Cooroy, Queensland. She has worked as an English teacher and editor. She has a Bachelor of Communications. She changed to a writing career after having Chronic fatigue syndrome.

References

  1. ↑ Morris, Linda. "The milk of human kindness", The Sydney Morning Herald , New South Wales, 21 January 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 Women Writing: Views & Prospects 1975–1995, Panel Session: Publishing: Fact and Fiction, National Library of Australia.
  3. ↑ Sleeman, Elizabeth. The International Who's Who of Women 2002 pp 149
  4. 1 2 Dowrick, Stephanie. Intimacy and Solitude: Balancing Closeness and Independence , William Heinemann Australia, Melbourne; The Women’s Press, London (1992); W.W. Norton & Co, New York (1994); revised edition, Random House, Sydney; The Women's Press, London (2002).
  5. ↑ "INTIMACY AND SOLITUDE by Stephanie Dowrick". Kirkus Reviews . Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  6. ↑ Jane Tolerton. Convent Girls , Penguin Books Australia, 1994
  7. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie. Running Backwards Over Sand, Penguin Books Australia, 1985.
  8. ↑ "Intimacy and Solitude - Stephanie Dowrick - 9781760111472 - Allen & Unwin - Australia". Allenandunwin.com. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  9. ↑ Robinson, Roger; Robinson, Nelson (1998). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. p. 33. ISBN   9780195583489 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  10. ↑ Cosic, Miriam (26 February 2011). "Incandescent Ivor Indyk turns down the heat". The Australian .
  11. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie. Rainer Maria Rilke : bearing witness 2008, University of Western Sydney
  12. ↑ Kirkwood, Peter. Interfaith pioneer's search for the sacred , Eureka Street, Volume 22 Issue 23 (Nov 2012)
  13. ↑ Collins, Paul. Believers: Does Australian Catholicism Have a Future? , UNSW Press, 2008, pp 62
  14. 1 2 3 4 Eagleton, Mary; Emma Parker, eds. (2015). The History of British Women's Writing, 1970–Present: Volume Ten. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 84. ISBN   9781137294814.
  15. ↑ Munro, Craig; Sheahan-Bright, Robyn (2006). Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia, 1946-2005. University of Queensland Press. p. 97. ISBN   9780702235733.
  16. ↑ Sydney Morning Herald, 6 January 1979; The Age (Melbourne) 10 February 1979
  17. 1 2 Morris, Linda. "The milk of human kindness", The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales, 21 January 2012.
  18. ↑ Eagleton, Mary, and Emma Parker, eds, The History of British Women’s Writing 1970–Present , Vol. 10, Palgrave MacMillan, 2016.
  19. ↑ Munro, Alice (1978). Lives of girls & women. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704338210 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  20. ↑ Townsend Warner, Sylvia (1978). Lolly Willowes: or, The loving huntsman. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704338241 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  21. ↑ Waters, Sarah (2 March 2012). "Sylvia Townsend Warner: the neglected writer". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  22. ↑ Roberts, Michèle (1978). A piece of the night. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704328235 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  23. ↑ Walker, Alice (1983). The Color Purple. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704339057 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  24. ↑ Edemariam, Aida (23 June 2007). "Free spirit". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  25. ↑ Frame, Janet (2001). An angel at my table : the complete autobiography. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704346932 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  26. ↑ Wallace, Arminta (31 March 2001). "An Angel At My Table by Janet Frame (The Women's Press, £10 in UK)". The Irish Times. Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  27. ↑ Dworkin, Andrew (1981). Pornography : men possessing women. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704338760 . Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  28. ↑ Talbot, Mary (1995). Fictions at Work: Language and Social Practice in Fiction. Routledge. p. 164. ISBN   9781317896579 . Retrieved 23 September 2017.
  29. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie (28 February 1998). "Big, but not big enough". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  30. 1 2 Field, Michele (19 December 1981). "Pink pigs and pandoras battle sexism in the publishing industry". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  31. ↑ Munro, Craig, & Robyn Sheahan-Bright, eds, Paper Empires: A History of the Book in Australia , 1946–2005, University of Queensland Press, 2006.
  32. ↑ Wright, Katie., The Rise of the Therapeutic Society, New Academia Publishing, 2011.
  33. ↑ The Age (Melbourne), 12 October 1985
  34. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie (1985). Running Backwards Over Sand. Viking Press.
  35. ↑ Woolsey, Marijke; King, Susan (1991). Dear Mother: an anthology of women writing to or about their mothers. London: The Women's Press. ISBN   9780704343450.
  36. ↑ Matthews, David (1987). "Australian Book Review". No. 87–97. Retrieved 24 September 2017.
  37. ↑ Scobie, Claire."Choosing Happiness: Life & Soul Essentials", The Age, 28 January 2006.
  38. ↑ Scobie, Clare. 'On the path to transformation', The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales, 13 November 2010
  39. ↑ "Stephanie Dowrick: Seeking the sacred", Life Matters, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8 November 2010.
  40. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie. In the Company of Rilke, Allen & Unwin, 2009.
  41. ↑ Kirkwood, Peter. The Quiet Revolution: The Emergence of Interfaith Consciousness , ABC Books, 2007.
  42. 1 2 Dowrick, Stephanie (2010). Seeking the Sacred: Transforming Our View of Ourselves and One Another. New York: Tarcher/Penguin.
  43. 1 2 3 "Compass: The Quiet Revolution Episode 2 - Pioneering City". ABC. 22 July 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  44. ↑ Fuhrman, Victor. "The Wisdom of Rabbi Joseph Gelberman". Beliefnet.com. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  45. ↑ Kohn, Rachael (23 October 2013). "The Spirit of Things: Day by Day These Things I Pray". ABC. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  46. ↑ Interview with Stephanie Dowrick in Wilson, Ruth. A Big Ask: Interviews with Interviewers, New Holland, 2000.
  47. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie, "Politicians quick to speak up but strangely silent over those truly in need", The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales, 8 September 2016.
  48. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie, 'Gender alone can’t make us to support Peta Credlin', The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales, 14 December 2016.
  49. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie, "Ten timely reforms for institutional Christianity", The Sydney Morning Herald, New South Wales, 15 December 2015.
  50. ↑ Dowrick, Stephanie. "Will Malcolm Turnbull exercise the greatest privilege he has as PM?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  51. ↑ "Forgiveness", Life Matters, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 25 December 2007.
  52. ↑ "Transcending Difference Together", The Spirit of Things, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 12 December 2010.
  53. ↑ "Self Help Obsession?". Radio National. 26 August 2005. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  54. ↑ Muir, Stephanie (24 March 2011). "Australian athletics legend Raelene Boyle talks to breast cancer sufferers". Daily Advertiser. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  55. ↑ "Brisbane 'Living well beyond breast cancer' forum". Breast Cancer Network Australia. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  56. ↑ Walker, Kylie; Wilden, Necia (20 September 2005). "Espresso: Chefs share". The Age. Retrieved 27 September 2017.
  57. ↑ Belknap, Mary. "The Nautilus Library". Nautilusbookawards.com. Archived from the original on 19 October 2011. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
  58. ↑ Coalition of Visionary Resources, Best in Print – General Interest/How To
  59. ↑ Belknap, Mary. "2014 GRAND/GOLD Winners". Nautilusbookawards.com. Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 17 September 2017.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.