Helen Garner will be appearing at the 2015 Association for the Study of Australian Literature Conference for a discussion of the relationship between contemporary Australian literature and politics. 

Helen Garner was born in 1942 in Geelong, and was educated there and at Melbourne University. Her first novel, Monkey Grip, came out in 1977, won the 1978 National Book Council Award, and was adapted for film in 1981. Since then she has published novels, short stories, essays, and feature journalism.

Her novel, The Spare Room won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Queensland Premier’s Award for Fiction and the Barbara Jefferis Award, and has been translated into many languages.

Her most recent work, This House of Grief was published in August 2014.