Jennifer Down has won the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award, for her second novel Bodies of Light
As one of the youngest authors to be honoured with the Award in its 65-year history – the youngest being Randolph Stow for To the Islands in 1958 at 23 – Jennifer Down has established herself as a potent voice in the new generation of Australian writers.
Jennifer Down is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Age, Saturday Paper, Australian Book Review and Literary Hub. She was named a Sydney Morning Herald Young Novelist of the Year consecutively in 2017 and 2018. Our Magic Hour, her debut novel, was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublished manuscript. Her second book, Pulse Points, was the winner of the 2018 Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction and the 2018 Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection in the Queensland Literary Awards, and was shortlisted for a 2018 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.
Today, the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund, alongside award trustee Perpetual, will announce the 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award winner from a shortlist featuring five exceptional titles. The announcement will be broadcast at 4pm AEST today 20th July. Go to the Miles Franklin Literary Award webpage to watch the announcement Live.
The 2022 Miles Franklin Literary Award shortlist is:
From July 13th to the 27th booklovers at the Blue Mountains Library can dive into a suspenseful, bestselling novel during Big Library Read, the world’s largest digital book club. Readers will join over a hundred thousand others around the globe in enjoying Audrey Blake’s historical fiction The Girl in His Shadow from their public library. Blue Mountains Library card holders can borrow the ebook and audiobook for free without waiting on the Libby app Readers can then discuss online at https://biglibraryread.com/join-the-discussion/
The Girl in His Shadow takes place in London in 1845. Raised by surgeon Dr. Horace Croft after losing her parents, Nora Beady knows little about conventional life and much about suturing and anatomical illustrations of dissections. Women face dire consequences if caught practicing medicine, but in Croft’s private clinic Nora is his most trusted—and secret—assistant… until the new surgical resident Dr. Daniel Gibson arrives. To protect Dr. Croft and his practice Nora must learn to play a new and uncomfortable role—that of a proper young lady. When she makes a discovery that could change the field forever, Nora faces an impossible choice. Remain invisible and let the men around her take credit for her work, or step into the light—even if it means being destroyed by her own legacy.
Big Library Read is an international reading program that connects millions of readers around the world with an ebook through public libraries. The Girl in His Shadow is the 28th selection of this program which began in 2013 and takes place three times per year. Readers can join an online discussion about the book at https://biglibraryread.com/join-the-discussion/.
Instead of hiding rips and tears, the visible mending movement turns them into art. It can look beautiful and it’s a lot of fun, not to mention, great for the environment. Mending Techniques include stitching, patching, darning, felting, visible and invisible mends, by hand and machine mends, fixing knits and fixing zips. Born from the Japanese art of sashiko, visible mending enables ‘sewists’ to eschew fast fashion and make mistakes beautiful.
Recently I attended an enjoyable workshop on visible mending at the Lyttleton Stores Coop. I had a go at needle weaving and some felting to mend holes in a moth eaten scarf. See first 2 photos above for my attempts.
So if you have an interest in the creative use of a needle and thread or learning about the different ways you can mend clothes and other textiles we have the following books available at our Libraries:
Read about how to reduce your plastic use and join millions of people reducing their plastic waste.
Plastic Free July is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics? Why not take the challenge!
Here is a selection of titles available from our Libraries
Readers in the Mist 