Marion Mildred Halligan AM

Order of Australia

The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...

 (born 16 April 1940) is an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 and novelist. She was born and educated in Newcastle

Newcastle, New South Wales

The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, and worked as a school teacher and journalist before publishing her first short stories. Halligan has served as chairperson of the Literature Board of the Australia Council

Australia Council

The Australia Council, informally known as the Australia Council for the Arts, is the official arts council or arts funding body of the Government of Australia.-Function:...

 and the Australian National Word Festival. She currently lives in Canberra

Canberra

Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...

.

For a number of years she was a member of a group of women writers based in Canberra known as the "Canberra Seven" or "Seven Writers". The group began with three members in 1980, growing to seven by 1984. In addition to Marion Halligan, they were Dorothy Johnston

Dorothy Johnston

Dorothy Johnston is an Australian novelist.Born in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, Johnston trained as a teacher at the University of Melbourne and later worked as a researcher in the education field...

, Margaret Barbalet, Sara Dowse, Suzanne Edgar, Marian Eldridge and Dorothy Horsfield. The group essentially disbanded after Marian Eldridge's death in 1997. However, before that they met regularly to critique each other's work, and published a book of short stories called Canberra Tales in 1988.

She was made a Member in the Order of Australia

Order of Australia

The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...

 (AM), General Division, in 2006 for services to literature and for her work in promoting Australian literature.

Awards

ACT Book of the Year	Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel, 1994 (joint winner)
	The Point, 2004 winner
The Age Book of the Year The Age Book of the Year The Age Book of the Year Awards are annual literary awards presented by Melbourne's The Age newspaper. The awards were first presented in 1974. Since 1998 they have been presented as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival...	Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel, Imaginative Writing Prize 1992 winner; Book of the Year 1992 joint winner
	The Golden Dress, Fiction Prize 1998 shortlisted
Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Writers' Prize Commonwealth Writers is an initiative by the Commonwealth Foundation to unearth, develop and promote the best new fiction from across the Commonwealth. It's flagship are two literary awards and a website...	The Point, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best Book 2004 shortlisted
Pascall Prize Pascall Prize The Pascall Prize: Australian 'Critic of the Year is an annual Australian award for critical writing and review, awarded to a critic whose work over the previous 12 to 18 months has contributed significantly to public appreciation, enjoyment and understanding of the area or areas of the arts in...	Eat My Words, 1990 winner
The Miles Franklin Award Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize for the best Australian ‘published novel or play portraying Australian life in any of its phases’. The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin , who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career ...	The Golden Dress, shortlisted 1999
NBC Banjo Award	The Spider Cup, 1990 shortlisted
	Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel, 1993 shortlisted
Nita Kibble Literary Award Nita Kibble Literary Award The Kibble Literary Awards comprise two awards which are presented annually: the Nita B Kibble Literary Award, which recognises the work of an established Australian female writer, and the Dobbie Literary Award, which is for a first published work by a female writer. The Awards recognise the works...	Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel, 1994 winner
	The Fog Garden, 2002 shortlisted

Novels

• Self Possession (1987)
• Spider Cup (1990)
• Lovers' Knots: A Hundred-Year Novel (1992)
• Wishbone (1994)
• The Golden Dress (1998)
• The Fog Garden (2001)
• The Point (2003)
• The Apricot Colonel (2006)
• Murder on the Apricot Coast (2008)
• Valley of Grace (2009)

Short story collections

• The Living Hothouse (1988)
• The Hanged Man in the Garden (1989)
• The Worry Box (1993)
• Collected Stories (1997)

Non-fiction

• Eat My Words (1990)
• Out of the Picture (1996) - collection
• Cockles of the Heart (1996) - travel
• Those Women Who Go To Hotels (1997) - autobiography, travel
• The Taste of Memory (2004)

Edited

• The Gift of Story: Three Decades of UQP Short Stories (1998)
• Storykeepers (2001)