Background
She was born in 1963 in the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, the third of three children. In 1983 she travelled to the United States with her father Gerry, a bohemian jazz performer.
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Mandy Sayer
Edit ProfileEducation
That year they married, and he became a professor at Indiana University, where she studied for an Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing with his financial support.
Career
They busked together on the streets of New York, New Orleans and Colorado for three years. Gerry played drums and Mandy tap danced. They discovered a mutual interest in jazz and the novels of Patrick White.
She writes about this in her 2014 memoir The Poet"s Wife.
On return to Australia she gained a Doctorate from the University of Technology, Sydney. They had worked together when they co-edited the anthology Looking at the Stars in 2000.
They have separate homes not far from each other near Kings Cross, in which their daytime writing activities are conducted, and they come together in the evening. In February 2014 they were named joint holders of the 2014 Copyright Agency Non-Fiction Writer-in-Residence at the University of Technology.
Achievements
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Born
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Nationality
Australia
Awards
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International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; the Myrtle Armstrong Fiction Prize; The Australian/Vogel Literary Award
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world.; The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is an Australian literary award for unpublished manuscripts by writers under the age of 35.The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world.; The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is an Australian literary award for unpublished manuscripts by writers under the age of 35.