Writing Round the Edges

Winner of the 2004 Patrick White AwardWriting about your own life is like writing with two hands; one hand is the you that you were, the other is the person you are now. If you are writing an autobiography you may decide to put everything in, if you write round the edges the book becomes a selective memoir.Nancy Phelan's long life has been enriched by adventure and the friendship of some of Australia's finest artists and writers, among them Justin O'Brien, Jeffrey Smart and Margaret Olley, Kylie Tennant, Patrick White, Dorothy Hewett, Jessican Anderson, Douglas Stewart and Jill Neville.From the heady days of her idyllic childhood on the shores of Sydney Harbour, through her work and marriage in London during the war years, to the transcendent highs and fire-scarred lows of her present life in the Blue Mountains, Nancy Phelan writes lyrically and entertainingly.