Background
Gillian Mears was born on July 21, 1964 in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. She was a daughter of Peter Mears, an agronomist, and Sheila (Mahon) Mears, a medical secretary. She had three sisters.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Gillian Mears studied at the University of Sydney, beginning a degree in archaeology, but withdrew from the course.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
In 1985 Gillian Mears received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Technology, Sydney.
Gilian Mears, pictured with fellow award winners and then Prime Minister Julia Gillard
Gilian Mears (front, centre), pictured with her fellow Prime Minister's Literary Award winners, from left, Luke Davies, Judy Watson, Robert Newton and Mark McKenna at the National Library in 2012
Gillian Mears, pictured accepting the 2012 Prime Minister's fiction award from Julia Gillard for her novel Foal's Breath
Gillian Mears
(North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five a...)
North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five and still living in the place where she grew up, rooted there by memories and her own inability to make changes until she has understood her past. The past is dominated by memories of her mother, and her mother, and her mother's attempts to dramatise and enrich small-town life and the perceptions of her three clever, receptive daughters. But only Clementine has stayed. Is this out of loyalty to her mother's memory? Or to comfort her father? Perhaps she wants to find peace with Hugh, her earnest husband in whose house she most uncomfortably lives? Or is the lure Thomas, who alone can appreciate Clementine's own sensuality, and her humour, but who must remain another of her secrets.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Mint-Lawn-Gillian-Mears-ebook/dp/B005ZLZJAU
1991
(A woman sits at a desk in a farmhouse reading old letters...)
A woman sits at a desk in a farmhouse reading old letters. Africa floats in her consciousness like the Australian hills she can see from the window. Seven years ago, her younger sister disappeared near a waterfall on an African mountain range, and now, like a necromancer of memory, the woman begins conjuring up her secretive sister's past so that she can proceed with her own life.
https://www.amazon.com/Grass-Sister-Gillian-Mears/dp/0091831296/?tag=2022091-20
1995
(Gillian Mears is a courageous and strikingly original sto...)
Gillian Mears is a courageous and strikingly original storyteller who has twice won Commonwealth Writers' regional awards, as well as the coveted Vogel Award. Her early stories - from the prizewinning Ride a Cock Horse and the critically acclaimed Fineflour - chronicle life in small country towns. Their raw atmosphere of grief and sadness is alleviated by Mears' consistently unconventional sense of the comic. the later stories use a wider lens, introducing a shift in sexual orientation and presenting different angels on the country town, along with locales in Africa, France and England.
https://www.amazon.com/Collected-Stories-Gillian-Mears/dp/0702229504/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(Paradise is a Place is an essay in images and words, offe...)
Paradise is a Place is an essay in images and words, offering a glimpse into the pleasures of being a child. Sandy Edwards' evocative photographs, taken over eight summers in the mythic landscape of the far south coast of New South Wales - amid spotted gum forests edged by sea - chronicle a young girl's passage from childhood to adolescence. Her luminous and moody portraits emphasise the vulnerability and freedom of childhood.
https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Place-Gillian-Edwards-Sandy/dp/0091836417/?tag=2022091-20
1997
(The sound of horses' hooves turns hollow on the farms wes...)
The sound of horses' hooves turns hollow on the farms west of Wirri. If a man can still ride, if he hasn't totally lost the use of his legs, if he hasn't died to the part of his heart that understands such things, then he should go for a gallop. At the very least he should stand at the road by the river imagining that he's pushing a horse up the steep hill that leads to the house on the farm once known as One Tree.
https://www.amazon.com/FoalS-Bread/dp/1743311850/?tag=2022091-20
2011
(Mr Hooper and The Cat with the Coloured Tail travel throu...)
Mr Hooper and The Cat with the Coloured Tail travel through the countryside in their ice-cream van. They enjoy looking for heart shapes (their favourite game) and making people happy with their delicious moon-creams. But a dark feeling is following the cat. Something is wrong. When the ice-cream van enters the forest, Mr Hooper and the cat realise the heart of the world is in danger. Will they be able to save it? A lyrical fable about love and healing.
https://www.amazon.com/Cat-Coloured-Tail-Gillian-Mears/dp/1458743624/?tag=2022091-20
2015
Gillian Mears was born on July 21, 1964 in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia. She was a daughter of Peter Mears, an agronomist, and Sheila (Mahon) Mears, a medical secretary. She had three sisters.
Gillian Mears studied at the University of Sydney, beginning a degree in archaeology, but withdrew from the course. In 1985 she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from the University of Technology, Sydney.
Gillian Mears' first short-story collection "Ride a Cock Horse" appeared in 1989 and was praised by reviewers. Mears published a second collection, Fineflour, in 1990, and it also fared well with Australia’s literary critics. Both Ride a Cock Horse and Fineflour are distinguished by their accounts of small-town life.
In 1991 Mears produced her first novel, The Mint Lawn, which Carmel Bird, writing in Australian Book Review, described as "a book examining the nature and meaning of memory." Mear’s next novel The Grass Sister, winner of the Commonwealth Writers Regional Best Book Prize, concerns sibling relationships and rivalries. The author described it in an online interview as "a book about letters and lying, pretence — especially family pretence — abandonment and absence, patterns of abjection and masochistic behaviour and how these are perpetrated across different sexualities." She is also an author of "Collected stories", "A map of the gardens: stories", "Paradise is a place", "Foal's Bread", "The Cat With The Coloured Tail".
(Gillian Mears is a courageous and strikingly original sto...)
1997(Paradise is a Place is an essay in images and words, offe...)
1997(Mr Hooper and The Cat with the Coloured Tail travel throu...)
2015(The sound of horses' hooves turns hollow on the farms wes...)
2011(A woman sits at a desk in a farmhouse reading old letters...)
1995(North Coast, New South Wales. Clementine is twenty-five a...)
1991Gillian Mears was an opponent of euthanasia, but the deterioration of her health had made her change her stance on the issue. She was a staunch euthanasia advocate and told the ABC that she believed people should be able to die "with grace and dignity".
Gillian Mears was a member of the Australian Society of Authors.
Physical Characteristics: In 1999 Gillian Mears was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In 2011 the debilitating disease forced her into a wheelchair.
In 1984 Gillian Mears married Stephen James Tatham, a teacher. In 1990 marriage ended.