Velocity tells the moving, painful but often hilarious story of Mandy Sayer's childhood and adolescence, a life lived on the edges - of society, of poverty, of certainty, of love. Filled with beautifully realised descriptions of life seen through a child's eyes - a child who gradually comes to realise her adored parents are all too tragically flawed and broken - Velocity packs the emotional impact of Angela's Ashes with the surreal humour and razor-sharp observations of Running With Scissors. Against a vivid backdrop of smoky jazz bars, steamy beer gardens and a succession of lino-floored dosshouses, Sayer brings into focus those moments when the child's world and the adult world intersect, when illusions are shattered and understanding begins. Unflinchingly honest, startlingly brave and written with a clear-eyed, lyrical grace, Velocity is an ultimately uplifting story of struggle and faith against terrifying odds.
The trailblazing McDonagh sisters were the first women in Australia to form their own film production company. Between 1926 and 1933, while they were in their mid-twenties, these sassy sisters produced four feature films and a number of documentaries. The youngest, Paulette, was one of only five women film directors in the world. Phyllis produced, art directed, and conducted publicity. And the eldest, Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, acted superbly in all the female leads. Together, the sisters transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush – and what they mocked as ‘haystack movies’ – into a thrilling, urban modernity. Their private lives were equally adventurous, and their suitors included a famous magician, a wealthy rubber broker, a defrocked Anglican priest, and a number of silent film stars. In Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Mandy Sayer reveals the sisters’ remarkable story, from daughters of a respected Sydney surgeon with a love of theatre and the arts, to their first feature film, Those Who Love (1926), an instant hit, and their controversial final film, Two Minutes Silence (1933). Today, their most famous feature, The Cheaters, is frequently screened at international film festivals around the world, most notably in New York and London, to rapturous reviews. ‘Engrossing and entertaining. An inspiration for filmmakers and artists today and anyone who dreams.’ — Jan Chapman ‘LOVE LOVE LOVE Mandy Sayer’s marvellous storytelling skills, showcased in this wonderful biography of the legendary filmmakers, the McDonagh sisters. As meticulously and thoroughly researched as an historical document, yet not just for film aficionados; it’s gossipy, fascinating and totally entertaining. A FABULOUS read, absolutely adored it!’ — Jacki Weaver
From an award-winning Australian novelist comes a wonderfully inspiring story about the ill-fated love affair between a white female jazz saxophonist and a black American GI, set against the backdrop of 1940s Sydney. From an award-winning novelist comes a wonderfully inspiring story about the ill-fated love affair between a white female jazz saxophonist and a black American GI, set against the backdrop of 1940s Sydney. Sydney, 1942. Pearl is eighteen, beautiful, and impetuous. She plays saxophone in an all-girl jazz band at the Trocadero and occasionally sits in on underground gigs with her twin brother, Martin, who also plays the sax. One evening, black GI and jazz legend James Washington blows into her life, and love begins to unfold against the blacked-out nights and rumor-filled days of a city in the grip of war. When James is shipped out to fight in New Guinea, Pearl hatches a breathtaking plan to reunite with him. And then all hell breaks loose. Internationally acclaimed author Mandy Sayer writes with astonishing insight and tenderness in this audaciously original novel—a romance with a haunting jazz soundtrack and a war story like no other.
Even though we'd grown up in vastly different cultures and countries, we'd both known poverty, domestic violence and the expectation that neither one of us would ever amount to anything. That was probably what united us more than anything: our shared defiance of that prediction. She tap-danced on street corners for people's small change. He was an out-of-work university teacher, poet and Vietnam vet. She was white and from Australia. He was black and from the Deep South. They met on Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1985. She was twenty-two. He was nearly forty. They fell in love. They married. What happened next will thrill, move, perplex and enrage you. It will break your heart. The Poet's Wife tells the story of the ten years that Mandy Sayer and Yusef Komunyakaa spent together, first as lovers, then as husband and wife. During that time he became a famous poet, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honour for poetry in the United States, and a university professor. At the same time, Mandy became a writer, winning the Vogel Prize for young Australian writers for her first novel, Mood Indigo. She is now an acclaimed author and journalist and has written two award- winning memoirs, Velocity and Dreamtime Alice. The Poet's Wife traces her life from the end of Dreamtime Alice, and again confirms Sayer's place as one of our most lyrical and most courageous writers - a memoirist like no other. Praise for Dreamtime Alice: 'A reminder of just how dynamic a memoir can be ... spellbinding.' - Interview 'A joy to read ... tells a story more vivid and unlikely than many modern works of fiction ... Sayer tells her story colourfully, humorously and without a skerrick of self-pity ... Trees would have died happy for once, if they'd known they would end up as the pages of such a special work of art.' - The Bulletin
VELOCITY tells the moving, painful but often hilarious story of Mandy Sayer's childhood and adolescence, a life lived on the edges - of society, of poverty, of certainty, of love. Filled with beautifully realised descriptions of life seen through a child's eyes - a child who gradually comes to realise her adored parents are all too tragically flawed and broken - VELOCITY packs the emotional impact of ANGELA'S ASHES with the surreal humour and razor-sharp observations of RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. Against a vivid backdrop of smoky jazz bars, steamy beer gardens and a succession of lino-floored dosshouses, Sayer brings into focus those moments when the child's world and the adult world intersect, when illusions are shattered and understanding begins. Unflinchingly honest, startlingly brave and written with a clear-eyed, lyrical grace, VELOCITY is an ultimately uplifting story of struggle and faith against terrifying odds.
MOOD INDIGO, Mandy Sayer's first book, won the prestigious 1989 Australian/Vogel Literary Award. Written in a deceptively simple style, it tells the story of Rose, three or four years old as the novel opens, a teenager as it ends. Rose loves the beach, her sister, her mother. Most of all she loves her Dad, and Dad's music. But too few people want to hear him, and sometimes Rose and Wanda and Mum have to fit uncomfortably into other people's lives. Acclaimed writer Mandy Sayer uncovers the powerlessness of a child with an entirely steady hand. Her social observations are often bleak, yet she draws the reader into a deep and lasting involvement with all her characters, and especially with the feisty, irresistible Rose.This edition also contains Mandy's second novel, the sequel to MOOD INDIGO, BLIND LUCK. Quick-witted, sharp and savvy, Rose is a survivor. She has to be because Mum's lost between lovers and cocktails and Dad's shot through. As Rose steers a course through the disasters that beset her mother's life, she shows an uncanny ability to endure and thrive.*** PRAISE FOR MOOD INDIGO:'Mandy Sayer has written this tough and perky little girl so well that the reader really cares what happens to her...The book should set Sayer on course for recognition as a significant Australian writer.' Doris Leadbetter, AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW' Highly accompllished...Sayer is particularly good at capturing the argot of Sydneysiders...and in evoking mood and place. Sayer's Sydney is true, substantial and compelling.' AP Riemer, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD'Sayer writes with a quietly assured style that occasionally flares into moving and distinctive passages.'Helen Daniel, WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
Coco is an author, model, and actress, who most recently starred in ABC TV series, The Straits. She lives in Sydney with a writer who answers to the name Mandy Sayer. Three years ago, a man tried to have Coco evicted from her building. Mandy wrote about it in the local paper, The Wentworth Courier, and the response from the public was so overwhelming, that Coco persuaded Mandy to write her entire story, from the time she was born to the present day. Even though she is a model and an actress, Coco experiences the same problems as do most young single females who live in the city: trying to find Mr Right and, when she does, how to quiet her ticking biological clock. (She adopts a son, Basil!)
Or at least there is a desire to become a smaller part of something larger in life, something that will take charge of you as though you were a child.' Richard Ford, WILDLIFE, from the epigraph to FIFTEEN KINDS OF DESIRE A young child is preyed upon by a molester - and turns the tables in a terrifying way; a young man adopts a disguise and finds love for the first time; a boy tracks down his father's mistress and is seduced by her; a young artist who is wooed long-distance by a passionate, urbane admirer discovers she is just another conquest to him and exacts a terrible revenge; a woman loses all memory; a man falls for a woman's corny superstitions and ends up slave to them; a couple shares an epiphany about the emptiness of their lives; the famous subject of a painting tells her life story; a thrill-kill couple take advantage of a naive country boy and discover too late he's more trouble than they'll ever get into; a woman paints a picture of her husband's lover; a man runs out on his wedding day; a woman loses her husband to his best friend; a prostitute decides to kill a rival but falls for him instead; a young writer remembers growing up in Kings Cross during its glory days... Vogel-award-winning author Mandy Sayer has crafted an impeccable collection of stories with a twist: each of the seemingly disparate stories is linked to the others in some way, so that, by the end of the book, the separate strands of story are woven together by their links to each other to create a vivid, teeming whole. Assured, intriguing, each as intricate and involving as a complete novel, these stories of FIFTEEN KINDS OF DESIRE will thrill any reader.
I fell in love with my first misfit at the age of three. He was a disabled man in a wheelchair who sold newspapers every afternoon outside the Empire Hotel in Annandale. Whenever I glimpsed him in the distance I would break into a run, jump onto his lap, and smother him with kisses.'' Misfits & Me represents a selection of Mandy Sayer's non-fiction writing from the past twenty years. Each essay has been chosen to reflect a different aspect of Mandy's attraction to Australia's misfits and outsiders, from child gangs and hoarders to pensioner drug dealers. Sayer also writes with her inimitable frankness about her unconventional family, her unusual marriage to playwright and author Louis Nowra, and her writing process.
Australia’s largest city “provides fertile ground for dark doings, as these 14 tales demonstrate . . . [a] cavalcade of crime Down Under” (Kirkus Reviews). Includes Kirsten Tranter’s Edgar Award-nominated “The Passenger” Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, “Sydney Noir brings together 14 compelling short stories by established and emerging Australian authors, each offering a startling glimpse into the dark heart of Sydney and its sprawling suburbs” (Sydney Morning Herald, Australian edition review). This anthology includes brand-new stories by Kirsten Tranter, Mandy Sayer, John Dale, Eleanor Limprecht, Mark Dapin, Leigh Redhead, Julie Koh, Peter Polites, Robert Drewe, Tom Gilling, Gabrielle Lord, Philip McLaren, P.M. Newton, and Peter Doyle. Shortlisted for the Danger Award presented by BAD: Sydney Crime Writers Festival Included in CrimeReads’s Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2019 “Akashic delivers another impeccable anthology with Sydney Noir, a deep dive into the mean streets, artistic outlets, and sultry demimonde of Australia’s largest (and liveliest) city.”—CrimeReads “The 14 uniformly strong selections feature familiar subgenre figures: gangsters, ethically compromised cops, and people bent on revenge for the loss of a loved one . . . Fans of dark crime fiction will want to seek out other works by these contributors, most of whom will be unfamiliar to American readers.”—Publishers Weekly “Here is a tough but tender vision of multicultural working-class Australia, with all its wards and anxieties.”—Australian Book Review
From Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel guide publisher, Better Than Fiction 2, the follow-up to 2012's Better Than Fiction, is a second serving of true travel stories told by some of the world's best fiction writers including Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley and Karen Joy Fowler. Varied in place, plot and voice, these are stirring and evocative pieces that all share one common characteristic-they manifest a passion for the precious gift of travel, from its unexpected but inevitably enriching lessons about other peoples and places, to the truths, sometimes uncomfortable but always enlarging, it reveals about ourselves. By turns comic, dramatic, and moving - from Francine Prose's confrontation of the mysteries of India to DBC Pierre's search for Hemingway's muse in Italy - these 30 short tales reveal the joys, perils, and surprises of travel, and that truth can often be stranger (and better) than fiction. Whether on a plane en route to your own travel adventure, or at home settling in for a vicarious experience of world adventures, embark on this literary journey around the world and explore your passion for travel now! Authors: Lonely Planet, Don George, Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley, Karen Joy Fowler, Stefan Merrill Block, Francine Prose, DBC Pierre, Fiona Kidman, Alexander McCall Smith, Keija Parssinen, MJ Hyland, Catherine Lacey, Rebecca Dinerstein, Lloyd Jones, Porochista Khakpour, Jack Livings, Marina Lewycka, Lydia Millet, Suzanne Joinson, Sophie Cunningham, Christina Nichol, Mandy Sayer, Steven Amsterdam, Marie-Helene Bortino, Shirley Streshinsky, Steven Hall, David Shafer, Avi Duckor-Jones, Lily King, Aliya Whitely, and Natalie Baszile About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places they find themselves in. Lonely Planet's award-winning list travel literature anthologies include An Innocent Abroad (Independent Publishers Award, Silver for Essays, 2015) and A Fork in the Road (Lowell Thomas Award, Bronze for Travel Book, 2014; James Bear Award, Nominated for Travel Fiction, 2014). 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' -- Fairfax Media 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times Lonely Planet guides have won the TripAdvisor Traveler's Choice Award in 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015. Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.
Even though we'd grown up in vastly different cultures and countries, we'd both known poverty, domestic violence and the expectation that neither one of us would ever amount to anything. That was probably what united us more than anything: our shared defiance of that prediction. She tap - danced on street corners for people's small change. He was an out - of - work university teacher, poet and Vietnam vet. She was white and from Australia. He was black and from the Deep South. They met on Mardi Gras, New Orleans in 1985. She was twenty - two. He was nearly forty. They fell in love. They married. What happened next will thrill, move, perplex and enrage you. It will break your heart. The Poet's Wife tells the story of the ten years that Mandy Sayer and Yusef Komunyakaa spent together, first as lovers, then as husband and wife. During that time he became a famous poet, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the highest honour for poetry in the United States, and a university professor. At the same time, Mandy became a writer, winning the Vogel Prize for young Australian writers for her first novel, Mood Indigo. She is now an acclaimed author and journalist and has written two award - winning memoirs, Velocity and Dreamtime Alice. The Poet's Wife traces her life from the end of Dreamtime Alice, and again confirms Sayer's place as one of our most lyrical and most courageous writers - a memoirist like no other. Praise for Dreamtime Alice: 'A reminder of just how dynamic a memoir can be ... spellbinding.' - Interview 'A joy to read ... tells a story more vivid and unlikely than many modern works of fiction ... Sayer tells her story colourfully, humorously and without a skerrick of self - pity ... Trees would have died happy for once, if they'd known they would end up as the pages of such a special work of art.' - The Bulletin
“I fell in love with my first misfit at the age of three. He was a disabled man in a wheelchair who sold newspapers every afternoon outside the Empire Hotel in Annandale. Whenever I glimpsed him in the distance I would break into a run, jump onto his lap, and smother him with kisses.” Misfits & Me represents a selection of Mandy Sayer’s non-fiction writing from the past twenty years. Each essay has been chosen to reflect a different aspect of Mandy’s attraction to Australia’s misfits and outsiders, from child gangs and hoarders to pensioner drug dealers. Sayer also writes with her inimitable frankness about her unconventional family, her unusual marriage to playwright and author Louis Nowra, and her writing process. 'Mandy Sayer’s Misfits & Me is warm and generous, deadly serious and very funny. Sayer is a terrific storyteller and the stories that she is telling us here are vital, surprising and necessary.' — Christos Tsiolkas 'Sayer deftly draws parallels between her own experiences of trauma and those of her interview subjects...will appeal to fans of Sayer’s previous work over the last two decades as well as readers of investigative journalism. ' — Sonia Nair, Books+Publishing
From an award-winning Australian novelist comes a wonderfully inspiring story about the ill-fated love affair between a white female jazz saxophonist and a black American GI, set against the backdrop of 1940s Sydney. From an award-winning novelist comes a wonderfully inspiring story about the ill-fated love affair between a white female jazz saxophonist and a black American GI, set against the backdrop of 1940s Sydney. Sydney, 1942. Pearl is eighteen, beautiful, and impetuous. She plays saxophone in an all-girl jazz band at the Trocadero and occasionally sits in on underground gigs with her twin brother, Martin, who also plays the sax. One evening, black GI and jazz legend James Washington blows into her life, and love begins to unfold against the blacked-out nights and rumor-filled days of a city in the grip of war. When James is shipped out to fight in New Guinea, Pearl hatches a breathtaking plan to reunite with him. And then all hell breaks loose. Internationally acclaimed author Mandy Sayer writes with astonishing insight and tenderness in this audaciously original novel—a romance with a haunting jazz soundtrack and a war story like no other.
Australia’s largest city “provides fertile ground for dark doings, as these 14 tales demonstrate . . . [a] cavalcade of crime Down Under” (Kirkus Reviews). Includes Kirsten Tranter’s Edgar Award-nominated “The Passenger” Akashic Books continues its award-winning series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn Noir. Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city. Now, “Sydney Noir brings together 14 compelling short stories by established and emerging Australian authors, each offering a startling glimpse into the dark heart of Sydney and its sprawling suburbs” (Sydney Morning Herald, Australian edition review). This anthology includes brand-new stories by Kirsten Tranter, Mandy Sayer, John Dale, Eleanor Limprecht, Mark Dapin, Leigh Redhead, Julie Koh, Peter Polites, Robert Drewe, Tom Gilling, Gabrielle Lord, Philip McLaren, P.M. Newton, and Peter Doyle. Shortlisted for the Danger Award presented by BAD: Sydney Crime Writers Festival Included in CrimeReads’s Most Anticipated Crime Books of 2019 “Akashic delivers another impeccable anthology with Sydney Noir, a deep dive into the mean streets, artistic outlets, and sultry demimonde of Australia’s largest (and liveliest) city.”—CrimeReads “The 14 uniformly strong selections feature familiar subgenre figures: gangsters, ethically compromised cops, and people bent on revenge for the loss of a loved one . . . Fans of dark crime fiction will want to seek out other works by these contributors, most of whom will be unfamiliar to American readers.”—Publishers Weekly “Here is a tough but tender vision of multicultural working-class Australia, with all its wards and anxieties.”—Australian Book Review
Drawing on the insights of Catholic and Protestant scholars, this collection of essays advances new insight into the theory, practice and relevance of empirical research in theology.
This book examines legal responses to domestic violence in a holistic, systematic and integrated way. It takes a systematic approach to examining legal responses, encompassing the full range of decision makers to analyze developments in substantive law and practice in all areas.
For aspiring life guards this book is a must read on how to give oxygen to create energy and have impact (like JR). This book is for anyone who wants to breathe life into their team through inspiration resulting in impact, leading to higher engagement, better customer experience and ultimately revenue""--Neal Watkins Chief Product Officer and Executive Board Director, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence, UK 'After 30 years in business, I cannot think of a leader who wouldn't benefit from the lessons in this book'. 'An exceptional guide to creating the impact you want while enjoying the reward
This title has been written with a very simple aim in mind - to provide a text which will enable the English legal system to be taught as an interesting, intellectually stimulating course.
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