Tobsha Learner is a British/Australian novelist, playwright and screenwriter. Her first collection of short stories, Quiver, sold 150,000 copies worldwide. [1] She has sold over 790 thousand books and is in translation in a number of countries. Her publishers have included Tor US, LittleBrown UK and HarperCollins AU. She is married with three stepsons, and while currently residing in New York has until recently divided her time between London and California. [2] [3]
Learner was born in Cambridge, England and raised in London. She is the daughter of Anglo-Australian parents: Arnold Learner, an English-born mathematician, who was killed in a motorcycle accident in London at forty and his first wife Eva Learner née Rechts, social worker, feminist and humanist who was born in Palestine then migrated to Australia aged four. Learner's parents moved to England in the late 1950s. She has two siblings Adam and Ruth Learner.[ citation needed ]
Learner went to Paddington Comprehensive then onto Hornsey College of Art for a Foundation year. During that year she also trained as a marble carver in Carrara, Italy, [4] apprenticed to the Australian sculptor Joel Ellenberg. After which she migrated at eighteen to Melbourne, Australia. She then went to the Victorian College of the Arts to complete a BA in sculpture. But in her second year, began to return to her first love of theatre. Firstly through performance art then playwriting after becoming one of the founders of avant-garde theatre company 'Straight-face Productions.'[ citation needed ]
In 1989 Learner was one of the founding sponsors of the National Foundation for Australian Women. [5] Her "Literary papers, 1983-1992", are held by the Mitchell Library at the State Library of New South Wales. [6]
After completing her degree she moved to Sydney, where she did a playwright's course at the National Institute of Dramatic Art then on to AFTRS, the Australian Film, Television and Radio School for a screenwriting course. Her mentors included writer/teacher Paul Thompson and director Jimmy Sherman.[ citation needed ]
Filippina Lydia "Tina" Arena is an Australian singer-songwriter, musician, musical theatre actress and record producer. She is one of Australia's highest-selling artists and has sold over 10 million records worldwide. Arena is multilingual, singing and recording in English, Italian, French and Spanish.
Glenda May Jackson was an English actress and politician. Over the course of her distinguished career she received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony Award. A member of the Labour Party, she served continuously as a Member of Parliament (MP) for 23 years – for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992 to 2010, and then, following boundary changes, for Hampstead and Kilburn from 2010 to 2015.
Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, known as Miles Franklin, was an Australian writer and feminist who is best known for her novel My Brilliant Career, published by Blackwoods of Edinburgh in 1901. While she wrote throughout her life, her other major literary success, All That Swagger, was not published until 1936.
Karl Sven Woytek Sas Konkovitch Matthew Kruszelnicki, often referred to as "Dr Karl", is an Australian science communicator and populariser, who is known as an author and a science commentator on Australian radio, television, and podcasts.
Dorothy Coade Hewett was an Australian playwright, poet and author. She wrote in a number of different literary styles: modernism, socialist realism, expressionism and avant garde. She was a member of the Australian Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s, which informed her work during that period.
Lisbeth Joanne "Libbi" Gorr is an Australian broadcaster working in both TV and radio. Gorr is also an author, voice artist, writer and performer. She first came to prominence with the satirical television character that she created called "Elle McFeast".
Belinda Lynette Green OAM is an Australian model and beauty queen who won the Miss World 1972 contest at the age of 20. She became the second Australian to win the title; the first, Penelope Plummer, was crowned Miss World in 1968. The pageant was held in London, at the Royal Albert Hall. Green's triumph came in a year that saw Australia win the Miss Universe crown, the Miss Asia Pacific title, and placed first runner-up in the Miss International.
Kerryn Lyndel Phelps is an Australian medical practitioner, public health and civil rights advocate, medical educator and former politician.
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).
Gladys Berejiklian is an Australian businesswoman and former politician who served as the 45th premier of New South Wales and the leader of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party from 2017 to 2021. Berejiklian currently works as an executive for the telecommunications company Optus.
Elizabeth Helen Hathorn is an Australian writer for children, and a poet who works with schools, institutions and communities. She has received many awards for her books, some of which have been translated into several languages. In 2001 she was awarded a Centenary Medal for her contribution to children's theatre. In 2014 she was awarded the Alice Award for her contribution to Australian literature. In 2017 she won the Asher Peace Prize and in 2022 the ABIA Pixie O'Harris Award for excellence and dedication to children's literature.
Betty Roland was an Australian writer of plays, screenplays, novels, children's books and comics.
Alice Pung is an Australian writer, editor and lawyer. Her books include the memoirs Unpolished Gem (2006), Her Father's Daughter (2011) and the novel Laurinda (2014).
Kate Maree Mulvany is an Australian actress, playwright and screenwriter. She works in theatre, television and film, with roles in Hunters (2020–2023), The Great Gatsby (2013), Griff the Invisible (2010) and The Final Winter (2007). She has played lead roles with Australian theatre companies as well as appearing on television and in film.
Balli Kaur Jaswal is a Singaporean novelist, having family roots in Punjab. Her first novel Inheritance won the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist Award in 2014, and was adapted for a film presented at the 2017 Singapore International Festival of the Arts. Her second novel Sugarbread was a finalist for the 2015 inaugural Epigram Books Fiction Prize. Her third novel, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows was released in 2017, and garnered her a wider international following, driven in part by being picked as a selection for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine online book club. Movie rights for Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows have been sold to Scott Free Productions and Film4. In 2019, the Business Times described Jaswal as "the most internationally well-known Singapore novelist after Crazy Rich Asians’ Kevin Kwan."
Amruta Patil is an Indian graphic novel author and painter.
Rosanna Alish Waterland is an Australian comedian, author, screenwriter, and actress. Waterland first rose to popularity in 2013 with her satirical recaps of The Bachelor Australia, and is also known for her books The Anti Cool Girl and Every Lie I've Ever Told.
Jessica Dettmann is an Australian author and performer.
Kate Box is an Australian stage, film, and television actress. She is known for her roles as Nicole Vargas in Rake, Lou Kelly in Wentworth, and as Dulcie Collins in Deadloch.
Roslyn Oades is an Australian actress, puppeteer and theatre maker.
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