Bernadette Brennan

speaker

419 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard May 2018 last heard 29 May

Bernadette Brennan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.

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The Bookshelf · On Michael Ondaatje's Warlight, Jenny Ackland's Little Gods, Charmaine Craig's Miss Burma and David Peace's Patient X. · 11 May 2018 podcast

If I was recommending one to... I can't say is the answer, which is unusual because normally there is one that will stand out with a writer.

I think The Mint Lawn, which was her first, which won the Vogel, is extraordinary.

And I meet women largely about sort of 40s and 50s who, a bit like when I said I was working on Helen Garner and older people said, oh, monkey grip.

Now people say to me, oh, The Mint Lawn changed my reading, changed my appreciation of...

writing.

But I think The Grass Sister is extraordinary.

And Folesbread that won the Prime Minister's Literary Award and the ALS Gold Medal, for which I was very pleased now.

I was the president of ASEL at the time, and I was also the chair of the judging committee.

And I got to meet Gillian to give her that gold medal.

And so little did I know that six years later, I'd be writing a book about her and her life.

But I think Folesbread is an extraordinary novel.

Definitely.

Although Jill Rose spent over 10 years writing the Franklin biography and the archivist said to me the other day, oh, you'll be in here for five years.

I'm saying, well, I hope not.

LAUGHTER

And I did hear a fine biographer once say, all biographies should take no more than three years, 18 months of research, 18 months of writing, because otherwise you lose the passion.

And I think there's something in that, the energy and the passion of the discovery.

So we shall see how I go.

That's great advice.

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