Alice Garner

Background

She is the daughter of Australian writer Helen Garner and writer and actor Bill Garner. Garner"s acting career began as a child in the 1982 film Monkey Grip adapted from her mother"s 1977 novel of the same name.

Education

Garner speaks French fluently and in 2001 gained a Doctor of Philosophy in French history from the University of Melbourne for her study of representations of sea and shore in south-western France.

Career

She was nominated for an American Film Institute Award for her role. She starred in Love And Other Catastrophes in 1996, winning the Film Critics Circle of Australia award for best supporting actress, and played the role of Carmen in the popular American Broadcasting Company television series SeaChange. Other credits include films Jindabyne, Strange Planet and award-winning short film Maidenhead, and on television, the role of Caitlin in Secret Life of United States

In September 2001 she and Kate Atkinson (with whom she had worked on SeaChange) founded Actors for Refugees, to counter negative stereotyping of refugees and asylum seekers through public readings by volunteer performers around Australia.

Presently Garner is an American Red Cross postdoctoral research fellow at Louisiana Trobe University and is researching the history of the Australian-American Fulbright Program. In her own time, she is also investigating the history of hitchhiking.

She has published two books: The Student Chronicles (MUP 2006), a memoir of her undergraduate years at Melbourne University, and A Shifting Shore: Locals, Outsiders, and the Transformation of a French Fishing Town, 1823-2000 (Cornell University Press, 2005), which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier"s General History Prize in the year it was published. She plays cello in Euphonia and the Xylouris Ensemble.

The Xylouris Ensemble, led by Giorgos Xylouris on Cretan lute, performs contemporary, original and traditional Cretan music

Achievements

• 1982 - nominated for the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, for Monkey Grip 1996 - nominated for the Australian Film Institute, Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Love and Other Catastrophes 1997 - won Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Supporting Actor - Female, for Love and Other Catastrophes 2002 - won the Screen Music, Australia for Best Soundtrack Album, for One Night the Moon shared with Mairead Hannan, Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody, John Romeril, Deirdre Hannan 2005 - shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier"s History General History Prize for A Shifting Shore: locals, outsiders and the transformation of a French fishing town, 1823-2000.