A Discussion with Australian Authors David Francis, Brian Castro & Steven Rafter

DAVID FRANCIS

David Francis grew up on his family's farm in Victoria, Australia. He studied arts and law in Melbourne. In 1985 he left home to represent Australia on an equestrian team in Europe and went on to ride on the United States show-jumping circuit based outside New York. In 1986, he moved to California to work for an American law firm and in 1996 he began writing fiction. Agapanthus Tango, his first novel, was published by Harper Collins/Fourth Estate in the United Kingdom in 2001 and by Harper Collins in Australia. In 2002, he received the Australia Literature Fund Fellowship to the Keesing Studio in Paris and, during that year, the novel was published in translation by Random House/Goldmann in Germany, Rizzoli/Bompiani in Italy, and Sirene in Holland. In 2004, the novel was released by Editions du Seuil in France and in 2005 was published in the United States by MacAdam/Cage as The Great Inland Sea.  In 2006 the film rights were optioned by Serena Films in France.

David is still based in Los Angeles, where he works with the law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski, but he spends part of each year back on his family farm in Australia and also at the Cité International des Arts in Paris. He has taught creative writing at the University of California Los Angeles/Occidental College and in the Masters of Professional Writing program at University of Southern California and is collaborating on the screenplay of The Great Inland Sea.  His short stories and articles have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Weekly Times, The Elegant Variation, Wet Ink and The Southern California Review. His second novel, Stray Dog Winter, has recently been released in Australia by Allen & Unwin and the US by MacAdam Cage, and is a LAMBDA Literary Award finalist and a Fellowship of Australian Writers National Literary Award finalist. 

BRIAN CASTRO

Brian Castro is one of Australia’s most imaginative novelists. He has published eight novels, as well as a body of essays on literary topics. His novels are dense and intellectually stimulating, but at the same time provocatively playful. Acknowledged for his prose style and brilliant use of language, his work has received wide critical acclaim and won many of Australia's major literary prizes. His work has been translated into Chinese, French and German.

In 1999 a collection of his essays was published as Looking for Estrellita.

STEVEN RAFTER

Steven Rafter has been based in Melbourne since 1998. He was born in Queensland. A former Teacher and Principal (both in Australia & Europe), he gave up a successful career in teaching to pursue his passion for writing. Steven has written eleven novels however 209 A Story is his first to be published.

 

The unique draw card to his novel lies in the fact that it is about Arthur McCrae, the only Australian whose body was recovered from the disaster of the RMS Titanic in April 1912. Furthermore, it is the first book in print to make reference to the new American President Obama and Mrs Obama, and also the first novel to reference the Tiepolo masterpiece, The Banquet of Cleopatra.

He has a blog (209astory.blogspot.com), which attracts about four thousand hits per week and almost two thousand supporters on Facebook.

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