Mandy Sayer

As most readers know, Hazel Rowley (1950-2011) was a superb biographer, and it was fitting that in her memory her family and friends set up the Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship valued at $20,000, to support Australian writers working on biography projects.

Award-winning novelist and non-fiction author Mandy Sayer won the fellowship in 2021 for her biography of Australian silent filmmakers, the McDonagh sisters. It was published in 2022 as Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia's First Female Filmmaking Team, and was shortlisted this year for the 2023 The Age Book of the Year in the non-fiction category.

As you can see from the cover design by Debra Billson, the publishers have signalled the era of the book with Art Deco motifs, but what you can't see from the cover is the clever internal design by Josephine Pajor-Markus. Chapter headings are in 1920s style Cinematic fonts, and the Table of Contents includes a 'Trailer', 21 Main Features and Extras (i.e. a filmography, a bibliography, notes and acknowledgements.)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/05/30/those-dashing-mcdonagh-sisters-2022-by-mandy...… (meer)

It’s a while since I reviewed The Australian Long Story edited by Mandy Sayer, and I’d never read her fiction, so it was good to chance upon The Night Has a Thousand Eyes (2007) at the library. A slim novella at 159 pages, it bridges a space between adult fiction and YA, but although the sex is offstage it would be a brave school that listed it for required reading since there’s plenty of strong language…

It’s a very well-written road journey with familiar themes. The teenage narrator Mark Stamp, his sister Ruby and the unnamed baby form a distorted kind of holy trinity as they flee from a very troubled home in a dreary country town when Mark finds his mother’s body. With no money and only a vague idea of getting help from some dubious relations, they set off for the coast with their father Roy in hot pursuit. Like a monster in a horror movie, he keeps surfacing as if indestructible. No sooner do the young people think they’ve shaken him off, than his old Fairlane shows up in the rear vision mirror.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/09/17/the-night-has-a-thousand-eyes-by-mandy-sayer...… (meer)