Jessica Anderson
Australian writer
Who was Jessica Anderson?
Jessica Anderson lived from September 25, 1916 to July 9, 2010. Born in Gayndah, Anderson lived the bulk of her life in Sydney apart from a few years in London. She was the mother of Australian screenwriter Laura Jones, her only child. Jessica Margaret Anderson (née Queale; 25 September 1916 – 9 July 2010) was an Australian novelist and short story writer. She began her career writing short stories for newspapers and drama scripts for radio, especially adaptations of well-known novels. She rose to prominence upon the publication of her fourth novel, Tirra Lirra by the River, published in 1978. Jessica Anderson died at Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales in 2010, following a stroke.
Historical significance
Embarking on her career as a novelist relatively late in life - her first novel was published when she was 47 - her early novels attracted little attention. Although she remains best known for this work, several of her novels have garnered high acclaim, most notably The Impersonators (1980) and Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories (1987), both of which have won awards. She won the Miles Franklin Literary Award twice, and has been published in Britain and the United States.