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Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Ordinary Matter selected work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 Ordinary Matter
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'In 1895 Alfred Nobel rewrote his will and left his fortune made in dynamite and munitions to generations of thinkers. Since 1901 women have been honoured with Nobel Prizes for their scientific research twenty times, including Marie Curie twice.

'Spanning more than a century and ranging across the world, this inventive story collection is inspired by these women whose work has altered history and saved millions of lives. From a transformative visit to the Grand Canyon to a baby washing up on a Queensland beach, a climate protest during a Paris heatwave to Stockholm on the eve of the 1977 Nobel Prize ceremony, these stories interrogate the nature of inspiration and discovery, motherhood and sacrifice, illness and legacy. Sometimes the extraordinary pivots on the ordinary.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Notes

  • Dedication: For my daughter, Harriet
  • Epigraph: But the formative faculty of Earth does not take to her heart only one shape; she knows and is practised in the whole of geometry.

    - Johannes Kepler, 1611

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Exploring Past to Reveal Present Louise Swinn , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27 February 2021; (p. 16)

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story
Catalytic Threads Thuy On , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2020;

'Ordinary matter is what we are made of – everything we can see or detect with telescopes or microscopes or our own eyes. Such a wide descriptive ambit makes it an apposite title for this second collection of fiction by Brisbane-based Laura Elvery, which ranges far and wide, across decades and geographical spaces, and occupies the nexus between arts and science, writing and innovation.' (Introduction)

October in Fiction Michalia Arathimos , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , October 2020;

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story
Books Roundup Ellen Cregan , Chloe Cooper , Nathania Gilson , Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen , Daniel Nour , Mary Anne Taouk , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , September 2020;

— Review of The F Team Rawah Arja , 2020 single work novel ; Poly Paul Dalgarno , 2020 single work novel ; Revenge : Murder in Three Parts S. L. Lim , 2020 single work novel ; Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story ; State Highway One Sam Coley , 2020 single work novel
Laura Elvery : Ordinary Matter Geordie Williamson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 19-25 September 2020;

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story

'A scandalous discrepancy links the 20 short stories contained within Ordinary Matter. They are fictions inspired by scientific achievements belonging to women over the course of the 20th century. Yet these same women are embedded in an undertaking – the encompassing system of explanation and exploration that displaced religion to become our modern creed – whose bias is male to its core.' (Introduction)

'Prize Motivations' : A Surprising New Short Story Collection Susan Midalia , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 424 2020; (p. 35)

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story

'Laura Elvery’s second short story collection, Ordinary Matter, shows the same talent for precise observation, pathos, and humour as her accomplished début collection, Trick of the Light (2018). It differs in its creation of a greater range of narrators and voices, and in its use of a specific ideological framework through which to unify the collection: each of its twenty stories is prefaced by the name of a Nobel Prize-winning female scientist and the ‘prize motivation’ for her award. This device might be read as subverting the sexist stereotype that, denying women the capacity for rational thought, consigns them to the ‘softer’ realms of emotion and artistic endeavour. It also encourages an interesting way of thinking about female desire as it pertains to a range of experiences, including creativity, ambition, motherhood, sexuality, and political activism.' (Introduction)

Laura Elvery : Ordinary Matter Geordie Williamson , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 19-25 September 2020;

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story

'A scandalous discrepancy links the 20 short stories contained within Ordinary Matter. They are fictions inspired by scientific achievements belonging to women over the course of the 20th century. Yet these same women are embedded in an undertaking – the encompassing system of explanation and exploration that displaced religion to become our modern creed – whose bias is male to its core.' (Introduction)

Books Roundup Ellen Cregan , Chloe Cooper , Nathania Gilson , Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen , Daniel Nour , Mary Anne Taouk , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , September 2020;

— Review of The F Team Rawah Arja , 2020 single work novel ; Poly Paul Dalgarno , 2020 single work novel ; Revenge : Murder in Three Parts S. L. Lim , 2020 single work novel ; Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story ; State Highway One Sam Coley , 2020 single work novel
October in Fiction Michalia Arathimos , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , October 2020;

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story
Exploring Past to Reveal Present Louise Swinn , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 27 February 2021; (p. 16)

— Review of Ordinary Matter Laura Elvery , 2020 selected work short story
Catalytic Threads Thuy On , 2020 single work essay
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , November 2020;

'Ordinary matter is what we are made of – everything we can see or detect with telescopes or microscopes or our own eyes. Such a wide descriptive ambit makes it an apposite title for this second collection of fiction by Brisbane-based Laura Elvery, which ranges far and wide, across decades and geographical spaces, and occupies the nexus between arts and science, writing and innovation.' (Introduction)

Last amended 13 Sep 2021 07:50:24
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