Samantha Gillison (born 1967) is an Australian-born American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

who frequently contributes to

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive and liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, includ ...

and

Condé Nast Traveler ''Condé Nast Traveler'' is a luxury and lifestyle travel magazine published by Condé Nast. The magazine has won 25 National Magazine Awards. The Condé Nast unit of Advance Publications purchased ''Signature'', a magazine for Diners Club me ...

. Gillison was born in Australia, of an Australian father and Canadian mother, but has lived overseas since she was two years old, although she retains her Australian citizenship.Ben Widdicombe, "Discovered memories", ''The Weekend Australian'', 26–27 September 1998, Review, p. 8 She lived for some years in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, where her mother was doing anthropological studies and her father was a photographer. She used the PNG setting for her first novel, ''The Undiscovered Country'' (1998). She attended

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, where she majored in

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

, and has taught at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. Peter Carey, who had never heard of Gillison before being sent a copy of ''The Undiscovered Country'' by her publisher, rang her to offer a very positive review for the dust jacket. In 2000, she was a recipient of the

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, ...

for her work in ''The Undiscovered Country''.Whiting Awards - Samantha Gillison
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Works

She is the author of two

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

s: *''The Undiscovered Country'', 1998. New York:

Grove Press Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United S ...

. *''The King of America: A novel'', 2004. New York:

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. She also wrote an article for "Children's Express" when she was 11 years old. * "Samantha, The World's Youngest Anthro-ethnographer" Children's Express, 1979, New York, New York.

References

External links

Salon.com articles by Samantha GillisonProfile at The Whiting Foundation
Living people Australian women novelists American women novelists Brown University alumni Salon (website) people American women non-fiction writers 1967 births 21st-century American women Saint Ann's School (Brooklyn) alumni {{US-journalist-1960s-stub