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Glenda Adams
Glenda Adams
Born	Glenda Emilie Felton; 30 December 1939; Ryde, New South Wales
Died	11 July 2007 (aged 67); East Redfern, Sydney
Occupation(s)	Novelist and short story writer; Teacher of creative writing
Spouse	Gordon Adams (divorced)
Partner	Chris Clarke
Children	1

Glenda Emilie Adams (née Felton; 30 December 1939 – 11 July 2007) was an Australian novelist and short story writer, probably best known as the winner of the 1987 Miles Franklin Award for Dancing on Coral. She was a teacher of creative writing, and helped develop writing programs.

Adams' work is found in her own books and short story collections, in numerous short story anthologies, and in journals and magazines.^[1] Her essays, stories and articles have been published in, among other magazines, Meanjin, The New York Times Book Review, Panorama, Quadrant, Southerly, Westerly, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Observer and The Village Voice.

Life

Glenda Emilie Felton was born in Ryde, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, the younger of two children. She attended Fort Street Primary School for two years and Sydney Girls High School before going to the University of Sydney^[2] from which she graduated with an honours degree in Indonesian.^[3]

She was a cousin of Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, but held opposing political views and wanted to become a political journalist.^[3] She moved to New York City when she won a scholarship to study at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and graduated in 1965. During this time, she met Gordon Adams, a political scientist at Columbia. They married in 1967 and had a daughter, Caitlin, before divorcing.

She worked as a lecturer at a number of tertiary institutions, including Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College, before returning to Australia and the University of Technology, Sydney. Her subject was writing skills and creative writing. She helped design the master of arts writing program at the university, a program which became a model for postgraduate writing programs throughout Australia.^[3] For the rest of her life, she traveled regularly between New York to see her daughter and teach at Columbia, and Sydney. Glenda Adams died on 11 July 2007 in Sydney, following a battle with ovarian cancer and secondary brain tumours.^[3] Her funeral was held on 18 July.^[4] She was posthumously awarded the biennial ASA Medal of the Australian Society of Authors.^[5]

Literary career

Adams started writing at the age of 10, with the encouragement of her mother.^[3]

While at Columbia University, she joined a fiction workshop and started writing using her real name, after using a male name prior to that to prevent her friends knowing she was writing fiction.^[3] Her short stories were published in such magazines as Ms., The Village Voice and Harper's.

After 16 years away, she returned to Australia and became writer-in-residence at the University of Western Australia, the University of Adelaide, and Macquarie University. Her literary friends included Australians Robert Drewe and Kate Grenville (who she supervised as a graduate student at the University of Technology, Sydney,^[6]), and the American Grace Paley.^[3]

In 1987, her second novel, Dancing on Coral won the Miles Franklin Award and the New South Wales Premier's Literary Award but a residential rule for the latter resulted in her being denied it. Instead, the prize money was used for a fellowship for a young writer and she was compensated with a special award (with no money attached).^[3] Her third novel, Longleg, published in 1990, was also an award-winner. Her fourth novel, The Tempest of Clemenza was published in both Australia and the United States in 1996, and in 1998, her play, The Monkey Trap, was performed at the Griffin Theatre, in Sydney.

Awards

1991: National Book Council Banjo Award for Fiction, Joint Winner for Longleg
1990: The Age Book of the Year Award for Imaginative Writing for Longleg
1987: Miles Franklin Award for Dancing on Coral
1987: New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Special Award for Dancing on Coral.
2007: ASA Medal

Legacy

University of Technology Sydney sponsors the UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, which is one of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.^[7]^[8] Formerly the UTS Award for New Writing, the award was renamed in 2008 to honour Adams.^[9]

Bibliography

Novels

Games of the Strong (1982)
Dancing on Coral (1987)
Longleg (1990)
The Tempest of Clemenza (1996)

Short story collections

Lies and Stories (1976)
The Hottest Night of the Century (1979)^[10]

Scripts

Pride (1993)^[11]
Wrath (1993)
The Monkey Trap commissioned by Griffin Theatre, Sydney (1998)

Notes

^ "Glenda Adams Publications and Scripts March 2004" (PDF). Bryn Mawr. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 February 2006.
^ "MS 76 Guide to the Papers of Glenda Adams". Academy Library, UNSW@ADFA. Retrieved 15 July 2007.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Dale (2007) p. 14
^ "Adams, Glenda". AustLit. Retrieved 15 July 2007.(subscription required)
^ "ASA Medal". Australian Society of Authors. Archived from the original on 3 February 2017. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
^ review of "Searching for the secret river", 2006-12-06, accessed 2009-08-02. Glenda Adams, along with Paula Hamilton supervised Grenville's Doctorate of Creative Writing in 2006.
^ "UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing". State Library of NSW. 9 August 2021. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
^ Perkins, Cathy (Summer 2019). "Excellence in Literature and History" (PDF). SL Magazine. 12 (4). State Library of New South Wales: 52–55.
^ "Message from the Minister". Arts NSW. Archived from the original on 20 July 2008.
^ Coral Lansbury (30 July 1989). "The Life You Hide May Be Your Own: Review of The Hottest Night Of The Century By Glenda Adams, 30 July 1989". The New York Times: Books. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
^ "Glenda Adams". IMDb. Retrieved 15 July 2007.

References

Adelaide, Debra (1988) Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide, London, Pandora ISBN 0-86358-149-8
Dale, John (18 July 2007). "A gift and love for fiction: Glenda Adams, 1939–2007". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
"Glenda Adams Funeral Notice". Retrieved 16 July 2007.
Who's Who of Australian Writers 2nd ed. (1995), Melbourne, Thorpe, in association with the National Centre for Australian Studies ISBN 1-875589-20-1