Episode 71: Bernadette Brennan discusses “Leaping into Waterfalls” , her exceptional literary biography of the late, great Australian writer Gillian Mears

Bernadette Brennan trawled through over 154 boxes of material in the State Library of NSW to uncover the remarkable story of the life and times of one of Australia’s greatest writers of the last 40 years, Gillian Mears. Best known for her last, multi-award-winning novel, Foal’s Bread, Mears had kept voluminous diaries and correspondence, much of which she drew on for her fiction, which was (controversially at times) highly autobiographical. Brennan unlocks the fascinating story of a complex woman with an abiding fear of what she called “lamb chopdom” – living an ordinary life. As this rich, textured literary biography shows, Mears’ life, much of it scarred by her long battle with multiple sclerosis, was anything but ordinary. A brilliant portrait of an exceptional woman.

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This project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund