Jump to content

Jaclyn Moriarty

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jaclyn Moriarty (born 1968 in Perth) is an Australian novelist, most known for her young adult literature. She is a recipient of the Davitt Award and the Aurealis Award for Best Children's Fiction.

Biography

[edit]

Moriarty was raised in the north-west suburbs of Sydney. She has four sisters and one brother. Two of her sisters, Liane and Nicola, are also novelists. Moriarty studied English and Law at the University of Sydney upon graduating from high school. She then complete a Masters in Law at Yale University and a PhD at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge[1]

She worked as an entertainment and media lawyer for four years before becoming a full-time writer. The literary agent who picked up her first book, Feeling Sorry for Celia, was Australian author Garth Nix.[1] Moriarty was previously married to Canadian writer Colin McAdam, and they have one young son, Charlie. She currently lives in Sydney.

The Ashbury/Brookfield series

[edit]

The Ashbury/Brookfield Series is four novels that are not sequels but are linked. They all revolve around various students that attend the exclusive private school, Ashbury High, or the local comprehensive, Brookfield High. Many of the students cross over into more than one novel, but each novel is different and tells a different story. All novels are told through the various character's own writing (through letters, emails, exam papers, etc.).[2]

The Ashbury/Brookfield series of novels are (in chronological order):

The Colours of Madeleine trilogy

[edit]

This trilogy retains some familiar features of Moriarty's style, such as a loosely epistolary form (the use of alternating chapters in which characters speak in their own quite distinctive voices); a sneaky sense of humor; and a plot that keeps the reader off balance by constantly subverting the 'facts' that one thought one understood. But it also marks a departure in the direction of fantasy: the premise of the trilogy is, or at least appears to be, the existence of an almost fairyland-like parallel world, sealed off from our world but in connection with it via 'cracks,' through which letters, or even people, can travel. As usual with Moriarty, nothing is quite what it seems, and incidents and ideas that appeared incidental may turn out to be central. All three of the books in the trilogy have been released.

  • A Corner of White, Sydney Pan Macmillan (published 2012), 2013, ISBN 978-1-74261-139-6
  • The Cracks in the Kingdom, Sydney, New South Wales Pan Australia, 2014, ISBN 978-1-74261-287-4. Winner: Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2015.[3]
  • A Tangle of Gold, Sydney Pan, 2016, ISBN 978-1-74353-323-9

Kingdoms & Empires series

[edit]

Other novels

[edit]
  • I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes (2004)
  • The Spell Book of Listen Taylor (2007) a young adult novel that is an adaptation of I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes.
  • Gravity is the Thing (2019) ISBN 9781760559502

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b "Jaclyn Moriarty". Archived from the original on 2 February 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  2. ^ "Jaclyn Moriarty". Archived from the original on 4 February 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2010.
  3. ^ "New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards" (PDF). SL Magazine. 8 (4): 35.
  4. ^ Qian, Jinghua (12 November 2019). "Winners announced for the 2019 Queensland Literary Awards". ArtsHub Australia. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  5. ^ "CBCA 2021 Book of the Year shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 30 March 2021. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
  6. ^ "2021 Queensland Literary Awards shortlists". State Library of Queensland. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
  7. ^ "Indie Book Awards 2024 shortlists announced". Books+Publishing. 17 January 2024. Retrieved 17 January 2024.
  8. ^ "Queensland Literary Awards 2024 shortlist announced". Books+Publishing. 2 August 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jaclyn_Moriarty&oldid=1242045940"