AustLit logo

AustLit

Jill Stark Jill Stark i(A97421 works by)
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Extract : Jill Stark’s Happy Never After Jill Stark , 2018 extract autobiography (Happy Never After)
— Appears in: Kill Your Darlings [Online] , August 2018;

'Jill Stark’s Happy Never After: How the happiness fairytale is driving us mad (and how I flipped the script) is out this month through Scribe Publishing. In this forensic examination of our age of anxiety, Stark explores how we can unplug, keep calm, and find meaning in a frenetic world designed to drive us mad. With humour, insight, and razor-sharp wit, she tells of her own struggles with a lifetime of anxiety against the backdrop of a stressed-out modern world, where many are drowning in a sea of digital distraction and white noise. The following is an edited extract from chapter 3.'  (Introduction)
1 1 y separately published work icon Happy Never After Jill Stark , Melbourne : Scribe , 2018 14069925 2018 single work autobiography
1 Health Writer and Weekend Write-Off Jill Stark , 2013 extract autobiography (High Sobriety : My Year Without Booze)
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 2 February 2013; (p. 48,57)
1 A Sober Affair Jill Stark , 2013 extract autobiography (High Sobriety : My Year Without Booze)
— Appears in: The Age , 10 February 2013; (p. 14-15)
1 The Stark Contrast of Sobriety Jill Stark , 2013 single work column
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 17 February 2013;
1 10 y separately published work icon High Sobriety : My Year Without Booze Jill Stark , Brunswick : Scribe , 2013 Z1910755 2013 single work autobiography 'A roaring, two-fisted exorcism of the demon drink, a demon inside us all.' John Birmingham

'I'm the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I write about Australia's booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I write myself off.'

Booze had dominated Jill Stark's social life ever since she had her first sip of beer, at 13. She thought nothing could curb her love of big nights. And then came the hangover that changed everything. In the shadow of her 35th year, Jill made a decision: she would give up alcohol. But what would it mean to stop drinking in a world awash with booze?

This lively memoir charts Jill's tumultuous year on the wagon, as she copes with the stress of the newsroom sober, tackles the dating scene on soda water, learns to watch the footy minus beer, and deals with censure from friends and colleagues, who tell her that a year without booze is 'a year with no mates'.

In re-examining her habits, Jill also explores Australia's love affair with alcohol, meeting alcopop-swigging teens who drink to fit in, beer-swilling blokes in a sporting culture backed by booze, and marketing bigwigs blamed for turning binge drinking into a way of life. And she tracks the history of this national obsession: from the idea that Australia's new colonies were drowning in drink to the Anzac ethos that a beer builds mateship, and from the six o'clock swill that encouraged bingeing to the tangled weave of advertising, social pressure, and tradition that confronts drinkers today.

Will Jill make it through the year without booze? And if she does, will she go back to her old habits, or has she called last drinks? This is a funny, moving, and insightful exploration of why we drink, how we got here, and what happens when we turn off the tap.' (Publisher's blurb)
1 Grand Way into Books Jill Stark , 2006 single work column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 6 August 2006; (p. 6)
X