Spotlight on: Iain Banks

Iain Banks has been a library stalwart for the past two decades, writing both mainstream fiction and science fiction, the latter under the name Iain M Banks. 

Born in 1954 in Scotland, Iain started writing at an early age, writing his first book, The Hungarian Lift-Jet, at age 16. He found mainstream fame at the age of 30 when The Wasp Factory was published in 1984. The deal with his publisher was to write a book a year, enabling him to become a full-time writer.

Iain’s work has found outlets in  TV and radio, and Iain himself has appeared as a guest on the occasional celebrity talk show.

Iain was also prolific in his political commentary and opinion, having been a major contributor the the public outcry against the British involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.  He went as far as cutting up his passport and posting it to then Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Iain published 27 novels, the last, The Quarry is set to be released next week. He died from cancer of the gallbladder at the age of 59.

Spotlight on: Bryce Courtenay

2012 seems to be replicating last year with the loss of some prolific Aussie authors.  Bryce Courtenay, well know for his popular and lengthy prose died last week on November 22 at the age of 79.

Arthur Bryce Courtenay was originally from South Africa, born in Johannesburg in 1933, but living in Lebombo until 1955. He met and married Benita whilst studying in London and then emigrated to Australia living in Sydney where he raised three children.

Hi first and possibly most famous novel, The Power of One, was published in 1989, shortly after being made into a film, and cementing Courtenay as a worldwide name. Each follow up book was met with great success, including Jessica, Tandia, Tommo and Hawk and others. His last book, Jack of Diamonds was published this year. Courtenay died from gastric cancer at home in Canberra.

Spotlight on: Joe Kubert

Comic book legend Joe Kubert died over the weekend following a long life as an industry great.  Kubert is best known as the founder of The Kubert School – a school of cartoon and graphic art that has been an industry leader since the 1970′s, and for the creation of iconic comic heroes including Sgt Rock, Hawkman,  and Tor.

Kubert’s family left Poland in the 1920′s settling in Brooklyn NY,  and was already being paid for cartoon illustrations when he was eleven years old. He was inking the famous Archie comics the very next year.

Kubert steadily found work freelancing and in steady employ over the next few decades, founding the Kubert School in 1972 in Dover New Jersey where he now resided. He still taught at the school one day a week in his later years. His school is well regarded as the ‘must attend’ school for aspiring comic book artists.
Joe died at the age of 85 from a variety of health issues.

Ireland mourns a ‘National Treasure’

Maeve Binchy, author of numerous works including Circle of Friends, Tara Road and Heart and Soul passed away last Tuesday (Australian Time) aged 72. The Irish novelist was the author of seventeen novels with her final work, A Week in Winter to see print towards the end of this year. Most of Binchy’s stories are set in Ireland, and are based around the tensions between urban and rural life, the differences between England and Ireland, and the changes in Ireland since the Second World War. A number of her novels are also interrelated, with characters from The Copper Beech appearing in Silver Wedding, The Lilac Bus, Evening Class, and Heart and Soul.

Maeve died on 30 July 2012 in a hospital in Dublin after a short illness. According to Enda Kenny, Ireland’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Ireland has “lost a national treasure”. Maeve was featured in our spotlight series in 2009.

Spotlight on Ray Bradbury

It’s been a bad year for the passing of authors, another literary great, Ray Bradbury died on Tuesday.

Bradbury was born August 22, 1920, and much of his early years were spent in the Carnegie Library in Illinois reading classic authors such as Verne, Poe, and Burroughs. He starting writing during this time, but states that meeting carnival performer ‘Mr Electrico‘  in 1932 changed him somehow and that he has written everyday since that encounter.

In 1938 he started publishing sci-fi stories in a variety of fanzines, publishing many collections of short stories in magazines during the 1940′s. His first major breakthrough and still possibly his most famous, was the Dystopian story, Farenheit 451 published, originally in Playboy magazine, but then as a novel in 1953. This story features a future where books are illegal, with ‘firemen’ tasked to destroy the written word. This title is required reading in most literary and librarian university courses. He went on to publish 27 novels and dozens of collections, essays  and contributions.

Bradbury died at the age of 91 from a lengthy illness.

Spotlight on: Maurice Sendak

We were saddened to learn of the passing of prolific children’s author and illustrator Maurice Sendak yesterday. Sendak was born in 1928 in Brooklyn New York to Polish-Jewish immigrants. His early life was somewhat traumatic as his family came to grips with the death of many of his relatives in Europe during the Holocaust.

After seeing  Disney’s Fantasia as a child he knew he wished to be an illustrator, his first illustrations being published in 1947. The 1950′s were spent illustrating numorous children’s books and then in the 60′s he became a household name after writing and illustrating the classic, Where the Wild things Are. Sendak wrote around 20 stories and illustrated over 50. He died from a stroke on May 8.

Spotlight on: Fiona McIntosh

Fiona McIntosh was born in England and spent several years of her early life  travelling the globe with her family before settling in Australia when she was 19. Her primary career was in the travel industry, before she claims ‘a mid-life crisis… for the sudden shift to becoming a full time author.’

Her early novels are of the fantasy genre and her first,  Betrayal, part one of the Trinity trilogy, was snapped up by the first publisher she sent it to, a very rare thing for an author. She then went on to write three more fantasy trilogies, as well as some children’s fiction and lately large historical epics. Her latest book, The Lavender Keeper was released just last week.

Fiona will be visiting the Library to talk about her life and her writing on May 28 at 6.30pm. Bookings details will be available on our website.

Spotlight on: Anne McCaffrey

It hasn’t been a good year for speculative fiction, with the passing of Diana Wynn Jones, Sara Douglass and now Sci Fi Grand Master Anne McCaffrey.

 

Anne McCaffrey started writing in the early 1950s (she was born 1926), with two short stories, the first appeared in Science Fiction Plus magazine, the second in The Year’s Greatest Science Fiction. She felt that women were unfairly and often exploited in Science Fiction and wanted to address this issue and did so when her first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967 featuring a young female protagonist who is abducted by aliens.

McCaffrey combined both the Sci-Fi and fantasy genres with her Dragonriders 0f Pern series, set on an alien planet where ‘the Few’ ride dragons to repel invaders. Arguable her most successful series it spawned over 25 sequels! She has penned at least 85 books in her time. Anne was the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula awards. Ironic as one of her early roles was to hand carve the Nebula Award trophy!

 

Spotlight on: Sara Douglass

With the sad passing of one of Australia’s favourite fantasy writers this morning, this week’s author spotlight will feature Sara Douglass.

Sara Douglass was born Sara Warneke in Penola in SA’s south east. Her first career was as a nurse, during which she studied for her Bachelor of Arts. The degree was followed up with a PhD in English history, an interest that is evident in her writing. During the 1990′s whilst lecturing at Bendigo’s La Trobe University campus, she penned her first fantasy novel, Battleaxe which was published by Voyager in 1995. This book was nominated for an Aurelius award, but didn’t win, however the sequels in the series took the prize in 1996.

Sara went on to write another 20 or so novels and a variety of short stories. She died at the relatively early at age of 54  from ovarian cancer.

Spotlight on: Tess Gerritsen

Tess Gerritsen was in Australia just a few weeks back, promoting her latest novel, The Silent Girl. Tess in a Chinese American who is actually named Terry, but decided to ‘feminise’ her name when she started out writing romance novels. She always wanted to be a writer, but her family indicated that an established career would be financially safer to begin with. Thus her career began as a medical doctor in 1979, however her love of writing was still there, publishing her first Harlequin romance novel in 1986. Several more ‘romance thrillers’ followed and in 1996 she published her first medical thriller Harvest. From there her already successful writing career exploded resulting in several awards and fourteen more novels!