In Deep Waters with Kerryn Goldsworthy, Freelance Writer and Critic

Abstract

Kerryn Goldsworthy has been a freelance writer and critic based in Adelaide since 1998. She is a regular book reviewer for the Fairfax press, Australian Book Review (ABR), and the Sydney Review of Books. She was the editor of ABR from 1986 to 1987 and lectured in literature at the University of Melbourne from 1981 to 1997 following her doctoral studies at the University of Adelaide. She is the author of three books: a short story collection, North of the Moonlight Sonata (McPhee Gribble 1989), Helen Garner (in the OUP Australian Authors series, OUP 1996), and Adelaide, in the UNSW Press series on Australian cities in which leading Australian authors write about their home city (NewSouth 2011). She has edited four anthologies of Australian short fiction and was a member of the editorial team that produced The Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature (Allen & Unwin, 2009). In 2013, Kerryn won The Pascall Prize, the only Australia national prize for cultural criticism. She was the inaugural chair of the judges' panel for the Stella Prize (for books by Australian women) 2013-15, and has also been a judge for the Miles Franklin and the then Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Kerryn conducted a popular blog titled ‘Still Life with Cat’ for several years. Her social media presence has now moved to Facebook, but the Blog still remains and is full of delights. I particularly recommend a post from September 2009, which sets out some ground rules for book reviewing. ttp://stilllifewithcat.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/and-bad-bad-review.html. I started our conversation with what I felt was the most obvious subject for discussion, book reviewing