Tracy Farr

Last updated

Tracy Farr
Born1962 (age 61–62)
Melbourne, Australia
Alma mater University of Western Australia (BSc/BA)
Occupations
  • Novelist
  • short story writer
  • research scientist
Website Official website

Tracy Farr (born 1962) is an Australian and New Zealand writer. Previously a research scientist, Farr has published two novels and several short stories. In 2014 she won the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award.

Contents

Early life and scientific career

Farr was born in Melbourne, [1] but grew up in Perth where she attended school and university. [2] She holds a bachelor's degree in science with honours in microbiology and a bachelor's degree in arts (English literature) from the University of Western Australia. [1]

Farr worked in Australia as a phycologist (scientist studying algae) after graduating and in Canada between 1991 and 1996. In 1996 she moved to New Zealand, where she continued to work as a scientist, including at NIWA and Te Papa, [2] and at the Royal Society of New Zealand from 2011 to 2015. [1] [3] Her particular area of focus was coralline algae. [2]

Writing career

Farr's short stories have been anthologised in The Best New Zealand Fiction volume 1 (2004) and volume 3 (2006). She has also had short stories published in Turbine, Sport , Westerly and The New Zealand Listener , as well as broadcast on RNZ National. [1] Her short story "The Blind Astronomer" was the runner-up for the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Award in 2001, and "Once Had Me" was the winner of the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award in 2014. [1] The judge of the latter commented that "each time I read it I was struck again by the confidence of the narrative voice, deceptively casual and colloquial, yet displaying an unfaltering authorial control". [3]

Farr has held a number of writer's residencies; she was the Emerging Writer-in-Residence at the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Writers Centre in 2008, a visiting writer at the Michael King Writers Centre in 2009, the 2014 R.A.K. Mason Writer's Fellow, the 2015 Varuna Second Book Residential Fellow at Varuna, The Writers' House, and the inaugural writer-in-residence at the Mildura Writers' Festival. [1]

Farr's debut novel, The Life and Loves of Lena Gaunt, was published by Fremantle Press in Australia in 2014, and by Aardvark Bureau in the United States, Europe and UK in 2016. It was shortlisted for the Barbara Jefferis Award and the Western Australian Premier's Book Award, and longlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award. It is a fictional biography of Lena Gaunt, a theremin player. [1] It was reviewed by The New York Times , which said that Gaunt's choice of musical instrument was "immediately intriguing". [4]

Her second novel, The Hope Fault, was published in 2017 by Fremantle Press, by Gallic Books in 2018 in the US and UK, and by Parallelo45 Edizioni in 2018 in Italy under the title Dopo la pioggia. [1] [5] A review in The Sydney Morning Herald described it as about "the way we live our daily emotional lives and accommodate whatever happens to us, and [Farr] cleverly uses the solid ground of a particular house as a base for these explorations". [6] It was selected as one of the 100 best books of 2017 by The New Zealand Listener, which described it as "quietly brilliant". [7] In 2019 it was adapted for the stage by writer and director Andrew Hale and performed at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. [8]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Anderson (writer)</span> New Zealander writer

Barbara Lillias Romaine Anderson, Lady Anderson was a New Zealand fiction writer who became internationally recognised and a best-selling author after her first book was published in her sixties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiona Kidman</span> New Zealand writer

Dame Fiona Judith Kidman is a New Zealand novelist, poet, scriptwriter and short story writer. She grew up in Northland, and worked as a librarian and a freelance journalist early in her career. She began writing novels in the late 1970s, with her works often featuring young women subverting society's expectations, inspired by her involvement in the women's liberation movement. Her first novel, A Breed of Women (1979), caused controversy for this reason but became a bestseller in New Zealand. Over the course of her career, Kidman has written eleven novels, seven short-story collections, two volumes of her memoirs and six collections of poetry. Her works explore women's lives and issues of social justice, and often feature historical settings.

Read NZ Te Pou Muramura is a not-for-profit organisation that presents a wide range of programmes to promote books and reading in New Zealand. It was established in 1972 and its programmes have included supporting writers' visits to schools and enabling writers to travel to different areas of New Zealand.

Lydia Joyce Wevers was a New Zealand literary historian, literary critic, editor, and book reviewer. She was an academic at Victoria University of Wellington for many years, including acting as director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies from 2001 to 2017. Her academic research focussed on New Zealand literature and print culture, as well as Australian literature. She wrote three books, Country of Writing: Travel Writing About New Zealand 1809–1900 (2002), On Reading (2004) and Reading on the Farm: Victorian Fiction and the Colonial World (2010), and edited a number of anthologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Catton</span> New Zealand novelist and screenwriter

Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.

Marilyn Rose Duckworth is a New Zealand novelist, poet and short story writer. Since her first novel was published at the age of 23 in 1959, she has published fifteen novels, one novella, a collection of short stories and a collection of poetry. Many of her novels feature women with complex lives and relationships. She has also written for television and radio. Over the course of her career she has received a number of prestigious awards including the top prize for fiction at the New Zealand Book Awards for Disorderly Conduct (1984) and a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2016.

Noeline Edith "Bub" Bridger was a New Zealand poet and short story writer and actor, who often performed her own work and drew inspiration from her Māori, Irish and English ancestry.

Elspeth Somerville Sandys is a New Zealand author and script writer.

Tracey Slaughter is a New Zealand writer and poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tina Makereti</span> New Zealand writer

Tina Makereti is a New Zealand novelist, essayist, and short story writer, editor and creative writing teacher. Her work has been widely published and she has been the recipient of writing residencies in New Zealand and overseas. Her book Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa won the inaugural fiction prize at the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards in 2011, and Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings won the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award for Fiction in 2014. She lives on the Kāpiti Coast, New Zealand.

Joanna Orwin is a New Zealand writer of fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Several of her books have been shortlisted for or have won awards, including Children's Book of the Year in 1985 and the Senior Fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book awards for Children and Young Adults in 2002. She lives in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Pauline Cartwright is a writer of novels, picture books, stories and poems for children. She was awarded the Choysa Bursary in 1991 and the University of Otago College of Education / Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence Fellowship in 2003. She lives in Alexandra, New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renee Liang</span> New Zealand paediatrician, poet, playwright and librettist

Renee Wen-Wei Liang is a New Zealand paediatrician, poet, essayist, short story writer, playwright, librettist, theatre producer and medical researcher. She has been the recipient of several awards for her services to arts, science and medicine and is also noted for her services to the Chinese New Zealand community. She lives in Auckland.

Russell Haley was a New Zealand poet, short story writer and novelist. Born in Yorkshire, he and his wife emigrated to Australia in 1961 and then to New Zealand in 1966, where he lived the rest of his life. He began publishing plays while living in Australia and his writing career continued in New Zealand, where he published several collections of poetry and short stories, and two novels. His work was known for its surrealism and imagination, and he also wrote about his life and personal experiences of moving between countries. In 1987 he received the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship.

Sheridan Keith is a New Zealand author, artist, broadcaster and curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gina Cole</span> New Zealand writer and lawyer

Gina Annette Cole is a New Zealand writer and lawyer. Her writing is inspired by her experiences as a queer Fijian woman. Her short story collection Black Ice Matter received the award for best first book of fiction at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her first novel Na Viro was published in July 2022.

Fiona Stewart Sussman is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and doctor. Born in Johannesburg, she moved to New Zealand in 1989 where she completed her medical degree and went on to work as a general practitioner until becoming a full time writer in 2003. She has published four novels since 2014, winning a number of awards for her writing. She has also won awards for her short stories, including the Sunday Star-Times Short Story Award in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronwyn Elsmore</span> New Zealand writer and academic

Bronwyn Margaret Elsmore is a New Zealand fiction and non-fiction writer and playwright. She was a senior lecturer in religion at Massey University from the late 1980s until 2005, and has written a number of works about religion in New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mona Williams (writer, born 1943)</span> Guyanese–New Zealand writer (born 1943)

Mona Annette Williams is a Guyanese–New Zealand children's author, memoirist, oral storyteller and educator. Born in British Guiana, Williams has lived and worked in New Zealand since 1971, and performed in storytelling festivals around the world. Her performances incorporate music and dance. She has written over 24 stories for children, usually published in the New Zealand School Journal, and published an autobiography in 1995 about her experiences attending a colonial school in Guyana.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael King Writers Centre</span> New Zealand writers centre

The Michael King Writers Centre is a writing centre on the slope of Takarunga / Mount Victoria in Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand, which offers residencies to early career and experienced writers. It was established in 2005 in honour of New Zealand historian Michael King.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Tracy Farr". Read NZ Te Pou Muramura . Retrieved 26 September 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "Tracy Farr talks corallines and cookery". NIWA. 1 September 2005. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  3. 1 2 Hurley, Michelle (26 November 2014). "Tracy Farr takes out Short Story Awards". Stuff. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  4. ↑ McCulloch, Alison (24 June 2016). "First Novels". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  5. ↑ ""Dopo la pioggia": l'affresco familiare e generazionale di Tracy Farr". OUTsiders webzine (in Italian). 24 May 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  6. ↑ Goldsworthy, Kerryn (20 March 2017). "Tracy Farr's The Hope Fault review: the constellations of modern family". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
  7. ↑ Baillie, Russell (6 December 2017). "The 100 Best Books of 2017". The New Zealand Listener . Archived from the original on 21 April 2020.
  8. ↑ "The Hope Fault premieres at WAAPA | localista". Localista. 7 October 2019. Retrieved 25 September 2023.
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.