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Melissa Ashley Melissa Ashley i(A7896 works by)
Born: Established: 1973 Christchurch, Canterbury, South Island,
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New Zealand,
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Pacific Region,
;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Melissa Ashley was the assistant director of the Subverse: Queensland Poetry Festival during the period 1999-2001. She has also co-ordinated The Arts Queensland Award for Unpublished Poetry.

Her short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in The Age (Spectrum), The Lifted Brow, Australian Book Review, Overland, Catamaran Literary Review, among others.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon The Bee and the Orange Tree South Melbourne : Affirm Press , 2019 17002659 2019 single work novel historical fiction

'It’s 1699, and the salons of Paris are bursting with the creative energy of fierce, independent-minded women. But outside those doors, the patriarchal forces of Louis XIV and the Catholic Church are moving to curb their freedoms. In this battle for equality, Baroness Marie Catherine D’Aulnoy invents a powerful weapon: ‘fairy tales’.

'When Marie Catherine’s daughter, Angelina, arrives in Paris for the first time, she is swept up in the glamour and sensuality of the city, where a woman may live outside the confines of the church or marriage. But this is a fragile freedom, as she discovers when Marie Catherine’s close friend Nicola Tiquet is arrested, accused of conspiring to murder her abusive husband. In the race to rescue Nicola, illusions will be shattered and dark secrets revealed as all three women learn how far they will go to preserve their liberty in a society determined to control them.

'This keenly-awaited second book from Melissa Ashley, author of The Birdman’s Wife, restores another remarkable, little-known woman to her rightful place in history, revealing the dissent hidden beneath the whimsical surfaces of Marie Catherine’s fairy tales. The Bee and the Orange Tree is a beautifully lyrical and deeply absorbing portrait of a time, a place, and the subversive power of the imagination.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 shortlisted Davitt Award Best Debut
2020 longlisted Davitt Award Best Adult Crime Novel
y separately published work icon The Birdman's Wife Melbourne : Affirm Press , 2016 10145786 2016 single work novel historical fiction

'Artist Elizabeth Gould spent her life capturing the sublime beauty of birds the world had never seen before. But her legacy was eclipsed by the fame of her husband, John Gould. The Birdman’s Wife at last gives voice to a passionate and adventurous spirit who was so much more than the woman behind the man.

'Elizabeth was a woman ahead of her time, juggling the demands of her artistic life with her roles as wife, lover, helpmate, and mother to an ever-growing brood of children. In a golden age of discovery, her artistry breathed wondrous life into countless exotic new species, including Charles Darwin’s Galapagos finches.

'In The Birdman’s Wife a naïve young girl who falls in love with an ambitious genius comes into her own as a woman, an artist and a bold adventurer who defies convention by embarking on a trailblazing expedition to the colonies to discover Australia’s ‘curious’ birdlife.

'An indelible portrait of an extraordinary woman overlooked by history - until now.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2017 winner Australian Booksellers Association Awards Booksellers Choice Award
2017 winner Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award
2017 finalist Queensland Literary Awards The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year
2017 longlisted Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) Australian General Fiction Book of the Year
2017 shortlisted Indie Awards Debut Fiction
Last amended 12 Sep 2018 10:48:58
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