Barbalet, Margaret Evelyn

Field of activity
Author, Historian, Poet and Public servant
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-617079

Biographies

Margaret Barbalet is an award-winning children’s author, a novelist, poet and short-story writer, a public servant and a historian (This entry is sponsored by generous donation from Christine Foley.)

Margaret Barbalet was born in Adelaide and raised in Tasmania. She studied history at the University of Adelaide and says she spent much of her youth protesting against the Vietnam war. She taught at Mitchell and Canberra Colleges of Advanced Education, and as a researcher and historian she worked for the Commonwealth Schools Commission, Adelaide City Council and wrote a history of Adelaide Children’s Hospital. She has also been an analyst at the Office of National Assessments.

As a children’s author she wrote the widely acclaimed The Wolf, which won the 1993 Human Rights Award for children's literature, and was shortlisted for the Younger Readers Book of the Year Award. She was honoured in several categories of the Children’s Book Council Book of the Year 2004 for Reggie Queen of the Street.

Barbalet’s published non-fiction includes Far from a Low Gutter Girl: the forgotten world of state wards, South Australia, 1887-1940 and a chapter in Canberra Reflects (2001), which accompanied an exhibition at the Canberra Museum and Gallery.

Her novels include Blood in the Rain and Steel Beach, which was shortlisted for the 1983 Vogel Award. Her other books include Lady, Baby, Gypsy, Queen (1992), The Presence of Angels (2001) and Paradise Hotel. Of varied genres, her work has been described as ‘capturing the territory of loss’. She is also a published poet.

She was a member of Seven Writers - a group of seven Canberra-based writers whose work often vividly portrayed life ‘beneath the surface of Canberra’ - and as part of this collective she contributed to Canberra Tales (1988), republished as The Division of Love in 1996, an anthology of short stories about life in Canberra. This work received an ACT Bicentennial Award.

Barbalet has been awarded an Australia Council Literature Grant; an Australian National University H.C. Coombs Creative Arts Fellowship (1998); an ACT Arts Fellowship (1999); an ACT Literature Fellowship (2001); a National Library of Australia Harold White Fellowship (2001) and an Australia Council Literature Grant for a New Work Fellowship (2002).

During a career at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (1990 - December 2008) Margaret Barbalet was appointed Second Secretary at the Australian High Commission in Kuala Lumpur in 1996. She was posted to Abu Dhabi from 2005-08.

In 2001 she headed the Literature Committee for the ACT Cultural Council. She now lives in Sydney

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

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Resources for Margaret Evelyn Barbalet

Selected resources (7)

Australian Women's Register

  1. The Presence of Angels
    Barbalet, Margaret
    [2001]
    Published: Penguin
  2. Lady, Baby, Gypsy, Queen
    Barbalet, Margaret
    [1992]
    Published: Penguin
  3. Steel Beach
    Barbalet, Margaret
    [1988]
    Published: Penguin
  4. Far from a Low Gutter Girl: the forgotten world of state wards, South Australia, 1887-1940
    Barbalet, Margaret
    [1983]
    Published: Oxford University Press
  5. Blood in the Rain
    Barbalet, Margaret
    [1986]
    Published: Penguin
  6. The Division of Love: Stories
    Barbalet, Margaret et al
    [1995]
    Published: Penguin
  7. National Library of Australia: Papers of Margaret Barbalet, 1974-1993 (1974 - 1993)
    Correspondence, manuscripts and typescripts, research material, corrected proofs, photographs.
    NLA MS 5396

Resources by Margaret Evelyn Barbalet (1)

  1. State children, theory and practice in South Australia, 1918-1928 / [by] Margaret Barbalet
    Barbalet, Margaret Evelyn
    [ Thesis : 1973 ]
    At Barr Smith Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.568)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.568)

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  1. Barbalet, Margaret Evelyn
    ... Margaret Barbalet is an award-winning children’s author, a novelist, poet and short-story writer, a ...
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    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.059)

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  1. Website: Australian Women's Archives Project
    www.womenaustralia.info
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    View 41 matching archived pages
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 2.008)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 2.008)

  2. Website: Putting skirts on the sacred benches : women candidates for the New South Wales Parliament
    www.womenaustralia.info
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    www.nla.gov.au
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  1. Citizenship today: vicissitudes and promise.(Bibliographic Essay)
    Kivisto, Peter
    CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries
    [ Article : 2010 ]
    View online (conditions apply)
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  1. Papers of Margaret Barbalet
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Unpublished : 1974-1993 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.962)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 6.962)

  1. The wolf / Margaret Barbalet ; illustrated by Jane Tanner
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Book, Audio book : 1991-1994 ]
    At 77 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 13.336)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 13.336)

  2. Readings by Margaret Barbalet, Adrian Caesar and John Foulcher on 23rd June 1992
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Video : 1992 ]
    At ADFA Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 2.357)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 2.357)

  1. Far from a low gutter girl : the forgotten world of state wards, South Australia, 1887-1940 / Margaret Barbalet
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Book : 1983 ]
    At 69 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 15.912)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 15.912)

  2. The wolf / Margaret Barbalet ; illustrated by Jane Tanner
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Book, Audio book : 1991-1994 ]
    At 77 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 13.336)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 13.336)

  3. Blood in the rain / Margaret Barbalet
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Book : 1986 ]
    read online at Open Library/Internet Archive
    View online
    At 47 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 9.535)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 9.535)

  4. Reformers and reformed : female state wards in South Australia, 1887-1940 / Margaret Barbalet
    Barbalet, Margaret, 1949-
    [ Book : 1980 ]
    At DFC Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 3.256)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 3.256)