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James Vicars James Vicars i(A1453 works by)
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 2 y separately published work icon Beyond the Sky Beyond the Sky : the Passions and Pioneering Life of Millicent Bryant, Aviator James Vicars , Melbourne : Melbourne Books , 2020 20875009 2020 single work biography 'Ninety years after her drowning, the true story of Australia's first woman pilot reveals a pioneer in life as well as the sky.

'In Australia in the mid 1920s, flight was still new, dangerous and glamorous - and aviators were all men. That was until a petite and quietly-spoken 49 year-old mother of three, Millicent Bryant, took her first flight, igniting a passion that led her to become the first woman in the Commonwealth outside Britain to gain a pilot's licence. While newspapers all over Australia began following her progress in the 'race', few outside her family knew the determination and depth of personality that took her into other areas considered unusual for a woman at that time, such as business and politics. And were it not for an ironic stroke of fate, her name may have become as familiar as other pioneers of the air such as Smithy, Hinkler or Nancy Bird Walton.

'Working from Millicent's own rediscovered letters and writings as well as newspapers and other historical sources, this innovative biographical work reveals a pioneer of the sky and beyond. On one hand it tells, for the first time, of a flyer who was also a businesswoman, small-scale property developer, golfer, student of Japanese at Sydney University and early motorist who had driven over 35,000 miles around New South Wales up to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko - and who could fix her own car to boot. On the other, it seeks to illuminate the inner story of a highly individual, modern woman whose life encompassed not only hidden romance, heartbreak and tragedy but also a spirit of change in the social, political and marital conventions of 20th century Australia.' (Publication summary)

 
1 Millicent Bryant, the First Australian Woman to Get a Pilot's Licence James Vicars , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 1 December 2020;
1 Discarding the Disclaimer? Reappraising Fiction as a Mode of Biography James Vicars , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT : Journal of Writing and Writing Courses , April vol. 20 no. 1 2016; 'While the biographical novel has created an openness to representing lives in fiction it is usually expected to provide a disclaimer certifying the work’s unreliability despite its potential for truth-telling and rich tools for writers wishing to tell the stories of real people. Even so, more serious attention to the historical novel since Lukács, the impact of the postmodern novel, plus the variety of published works that have adopted fictional strategies to tell lives over the last half century suggest this perspective is shifting. Using Ina Schabert’s seminal work on fictional biography as a scholarly reference point, this paper explores fiction’s biographical capacity, turning to published works and personal writing practice to try to reappraise the potential of fiction as a mode of biography.' (Publication abstract)
1 Poetry as 'Bull-Leaping' James Vicars , Yve Louis , 1996 single work biography interview
— Appears in: New England Review , Spring no. 4 1996; (p. 10-12)
1 Interstate Participants at Armidale Poetry and Music Festival James Vicars , 1994 single work criticism
— Appears in: Newswrite : The Newsletter of the New South Wales Writers' Centre , February no. 24 1994; (p. 5)
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