CANCELLED Cathy Perkins - The Shelf Life of Zora Cross

The Shelf Life of Zora Cross by Cathy Perkins is earning rave reviews, and no wonder! It shines a light on the forgotten literary genius of Australian author Zora Cross in beguiling and illuminating fashion.  

Cathy discusses Zora's life and work with Fiona Wright.   

This is a FREE event. Drinks and nibbles provided.    

About the Book

Australian poet and journalist Zora Cross caused a sensation in 1917 with her book Songs of Love and Life. Here was a young woman who looked like a Sunday school teacher, celebrating sexual passion in a provocative series of sonnets. She was hailed as a genius, and many expected her to endure as a household name alongside William Shakespeare and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.   

While Cross’s fame didn’t last, she kept writing through financial hardship, personal tragedies and two world wars, producing an impressive body of work. Her verse, prose and correspondence with the likes of Ethel Turner, George Robertson (of Angus & Robertson) and Mary Gilmore place Zora Cross among the key personalities of Australia’s literary world in the early twentieth century. 

 

Praise

‘The Shelf Life of Zora Cross is a beguiling narrative … Cross’s chaotic life story is splendidly told by Perkins … This enigmatically titled biography conveys the pleasures of Cathy Perkins’s search for the many-faceted author.’ – Brenda Niall, Australian Book Review

 

'A rare gem. This is biography at its best: boldly conceived and  brilliantly written. In spare, haunting prose Cathy Perkins rescues Zora Cross from oblivion, re-establishing her as one of Australia’s most remarkable literary figures. We see Zora’s life through the stories of her relationships with others. The person that emerges — possessed by an irrepressible hunger to write and to be published — is impossible to pin down. In Perkins’s hands, Zora Cross dances vividly before our eyes.' — Mark McKenna 

'This book sits alongside the work of Clare Wright, righting the wrongs and colouring in the half of the ledger that barely exists... Cross’s writing fell out of fashion and has been all but forgotten. We can only hope that this lively new volume, which shows precisely why we need university presses, will help to correct that.' — The Saturday Paper 

 

About the Author

Cathy Perkins is a writer and editor who lives in Sydney. She edits the award-winning SL magazine and other publications at the State Library of New South Wales, and has worked as a book editor, in a bookshop, and for the Australian Society of Authors. Her essays on Zora Cross have been published in the literary journal Meanjin, and The Shelf Life of Zora Cross is her first book.