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Belinda Castles Belinda Castles i(A19048 works by)
Born: Established: 1971
c
England,
c
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Female
Arrived in Australia: 1996
Heritage: English
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Works By

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1 1 y separately published work icon Reading like an Australian Writer Belinda Castles (editor), Sydney : NewSouth Publishing , 2021 21790266 2021 anthology criticism

''The best books are those you revisit over the years ... and with each visit you learn new things about yourself and about the story.' — Mykaela Saunders on Carpentaria by Alexis Wright

'All writers begin as readers.

'This is an ode, a love letter, to the magic of reading. To the spark that's set off when the reader thinks ... I can do this too. Here, twenty-six writers take us through these moments of revelation through the dog-eared pages of their favourite Australian books. Among them, poet Ellen van Neerven finds kin on the page with Miles Franklin-winner Tara June Winch. AS Patrić finds a dark mirror for our times in David Malouf’s retelling of an episode from the Iliad. Ashley Hay pens letters of appreciation and friendship to Charlotte Wood.

'These and many more writers come together to draw knowledge from the distinctive personal and sensory stories of this country: its thefts and losses, and its imagined futures. Australian fiction shows us what it is possible to say and, perhaps, what still needs to be said.

'Reading Like an Australian Writer is a delightful, inspirational and heartfelt collection of essays that will enrich your reading of Australian stories and guide you in your own writing.' (Publication summary)

1 ‘A Body in Time’ : Reading and Writing Australian Literature Belinda Castles , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 57 2019;
'In the press, a lament for the study of Australian literature is often coupled with mistrust at the popularity of creative programs. It can be disconcerting for writers and teachers of writing in Australia, who work in a practical as well as pedagogical sense in the field of Australian literature, to be placed in an antithetical position to it. One response to the narrative of the decline of Australian literature in universities has been an assertion of its ‘embeddedness’ across the curriculum. The creative writing classroom is one place in which it can reliably be found, and the act of reading for the purpose of writing brings a distinctive charge to the study of Australian literature, produced by a movement across modal peripheries. This essay argues, via a ‘body in time’ (Jose 2011) model of Australian literature, and a reading of the novella Vertigo by Amanda Lohrey (2009), that the key elements of process and proximity in this mode of reading make a distinctive contribution to the study of Australian literature.' (Publication abstract)
1 4 y separately published work icon Bluebottle Belinda Castles , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2018 13556308 2018 single work novel

'With sea-salt authenticity, Belinda Castles sets the Bright family in the sprawling paradise of Bilgola Beach. But darkness is found both in the iconic setting as well as in the disturbing behaviour of one of the family.

'As he tilted the blinds she saw her mother in her tennis whites, standing at the kitchen bench, staring out into the dark bushland that bordered their houses. That was what Tricia did these days, looked into the bush as though it would attack one of them.

'On a sweltering day in a cliff-top beach shack, Jack and Lou Bright grow suspicious about the behaviour of their charismatic, unpredictable father, Charlie. A girl they know has disappeared, and as the day unfolds, Jack's eruptions of panic, Lou's sultry rebellions and their little sister Phoebe's attention-seeking push the family towards revelation.

'Twenty years later, the Bright children have remained close to the cliff edges, russet sand and moody ocean of their childhood. Behind the beautiful surfaces of their daily lives lies the difficult landscape of their past, always threatening to break through. And then, one night in late summer, they return to the house on the cliff...

'Gripping and evocative, Bluebottle is a story of a family bound by an inescapable past, from the award-winning author of The River Baptists and Hannah and Emil.' (Publication summary)

1 The Sydney Language : William Dawes in Australian Literature Belinda Castles , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: New Scholar , vol. 3 no. 2 2014;
'Familiar images of Sydney, displaying its sparkling harbour, opera house and bridge, belie the darkness of its short history. For Delia Falconer, in her recent ‘biography’ of Sydney, the city’s ‘fundamental temperament is melancholy’ (2). Over two hundred years of European settlement have brought countless tales of grim encounters in quiet alleys, graves found in the bush, bodies bobbing to the surface of rivers. And there is an older shock, hidden in the landscape, the sudden, calamitous arrival of an alien civilisation. ' (Author's introduction)
3 8 y separately published work icon Hannah and Emil Belinda Castles , Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2012 Z1879347 2012 single work novel historical fiction 'Emil and Hannah live their lives amid the turmoil of 20th-century history. Emil, a German veteran of the Great War, has returned home to a disturbed nation. As inflation and unemployment edge the country near collapse, Emil's involvement with the resistance ultimately forces him from his family and his home. Hannah, soaked in the many languages of her upbringing as a Russian Jew in the West End of London and intent on experiencing the world, leaves home for Europe, travelling into a continent headed again towards total war. In Brussels, she meets the devastated Emil, who has just crossed the border on foot from Nazi Germany, leaving tragedy in his wake. All too briefly, they make a life in England before war strikes, and Emil, an enemy alien, is interned and then sent away. Hannah, determined to find him, prepares herself for a lonely and dangerous journey across the seas' (Publisher website).
1 Purged by the Flames of Destruction Belinda Castles , 2006 extract novel (The River Baptists)
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 23-24 September 2006; (p. 10-11)
1 14 y separately published work icon The River Baptists Belinda Castles , 2006 Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2007 Z1308837 2006 single work novel

'Set in a small riverside community, The River Baptists tells the story of Rose, bunkered down in a borrowed house overlooking the river, grieving for her dead father and waiting for her baby to be born. It is also the story of Danny, another refugee from life elsewhere, hiding out from his violent father and dreaming of owning a block of land on the river. Then there are the river old-timers, who miss nothing and forget less, and a newcomer who cares nothing for the locals, or the secrets of the past. Set over the course of a long hot tense summer, when sparks constantly threaten to ignite bushfires, the tight-knit riverside community is set alight by confidences betrayed and a renewed age-old grudge.

'And through it all flows the mysterious pulse of the river, indifferent, deep and calm, offering the possibility of life and death, renewal and rebirth.' (Publisher's blurb)

1 10 y separately published work icon Falling Woman Belinda Castles , Sydney : Hodder Headline , 2000 Z382602 2000 single work novel

'Rebecca is waitressing at Centrepoint Tower when a woman jumps from the tower with her young child. Losing her own grip on life, and sliding into sexual betrayals, Rebecca too begins to fall, slipping into an urban underworld peopled by lost souls and the voices of ghosts, and in a corner of the city, the past catches up with her.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

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