Debra Adelaide (born 1958) is an Australian novelist, writer and academic. She teaches creative writing at the

University of Technology Sydney The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The university was founded in its current form in 1988, though its origins as a Institute of technology, ...

Biography

Adelaide was born in Sydney and grew up in the Sutherland Shire. A contemporary of writers Kathy Lette and Gabrielle Carey, she attended Gymea High School and then, via a teacher's scholarship, she completed a BA (Honours) and MA (Honours) in English literature at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

. She then completed a PhD in Australian women's literature in 1991 there, and in the process completed her first book, a bibliography of Australian women's literature. While studying, Debra Adelaide worked as a university tutor and research assistant, and afterwards became a freelance editor, author and book reviewer. She commenced writing fiction in the early 1990s and her first novel, ''The Hotel Albatross'', was published in 1995. She is currently an associate professor in creative practice at the

, where she teaches in the undergraduate communication program and teaches and supervises postgraduate creative writing. She was married until 2003 and has three children.

Works

Adelaide has published 12 books, including novels, anthologies and reference books on Australian literature. Her novels are ''The Household Guide to Dying'' (Picador:2008), ''The Hotel Albatross'' (Vintage: 1995) and ''Serpent Dust'' (Vintage: 1998). She has published two collections of short fiction, entitled ''Zebra: and other stories'' (Picador: 2019) and ''Letter to George Clooney'' (Picador: 2013) and also contributed to and edited the anthology'' Acts of Dogs ''(Vintage: 2003) in which leading Australian and NZ authors have written stories and memoirs on the theme of dogs, and the ''Motherlove'' series of anthologies (Random House: 1996; 1997; 1998). ''Zebra'' won the 2019

University of Southern Queensland The University of Southern Queensland is a public research university based in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, the sixth largest city in the Australian state of Queensland Founded in 1967 after a successful campaign by the local Darling Down ...

Steele Rudd Award for a Short Story Collection.

Bibliography

Novels

* ''The Hotel Albatross'' (1995) * ''Serpent Dust'' (1998) * ''The Household Guide to Dying'' (2008) * ''The Women's Pages'' (2015)

Short stories

* ''Letter to George Clooney'' (2013) * ''Zebra'' (2019)

Non-fiction

* ''Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide'' (Pandora, 1988) * ''The Innocent Reader: Reflections on Reading and Writing'' (2019)

As editor

* ''A Window in the Dark'' (1991). Autobiography of Dymphna Cusack * ''Motherlove: Stories About Births, Babies and Beyond'' (1996) * ''Motherlove 2: More Stories About Births, Babies and Beyond'' (1997) * ''A Bright and Fiery Troop: Australian Women Writers of the Nineteenth Century'' (1998) * ''Cutting the Cord: Stories of Children, Love and Loss'' (1998) *''Acts of Dog: Writers on the Canine Divine'' (2003) * ''The Simple Act of Reading'' (2015)

Awards

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adelaide, Debra 1958 births Living people 20th-century Australian novelists 21st-century Australian novelists Australian freelance journalists Australian women novelists People from the Sutherland Shire Writers from New South Wales 21st-century Australian women writers Australian Book Review people 20th-century Australian women academics 20th-century Australian women writers Writers from Sydney