Eldridge, Marian Favel Clair (1936-1997)

Field of activity
Author and Poet
NLA Persistent Identifier
http://nla.gov.au/nla.party-623535

Biographies

Marian Eldridge was an acclaimed short-story writer, novelist and poet, and was instrumental in establishing the ACT Writers Centre. Her legacy is the Marian Eldridge Award to nurture promising women writers. (This entry is sponsored by generous donation from Christine Foley.)

Marian Eldridge grew up on her parents’ property, ‘The Gap’, near Lancefield in Victoria. She graduated Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne in 1957. She married Ken Eldridge in 1958 and lived at Traralgon, Victoria until 1966 and in Canberra from 1966 to 1997. The couple had four children.

Eldridge worked as a high school teacher of English and History in Traralgon, Victoria and in the ACT, and as a literature tutor at the Centre for Continuing Education, Australian National University.

She became a prolific short story writer, and collections of her work were published in Walking the Dog (1984), The Woman at the Window (1989) which earned high praise from the New York Times Book Review in 1990, and The Wild Sweet Flowers: The Alvie Skerritt Stories (1994) which chronicled ‘the life of a fairly typical Australian family’. Her work also appeared in a number of newspapers and academic journals and more than twenty short story collections.

She also published a novel, Springfield (1992), which used healing of the land as a metaphor for healing its characters, who were damaged by drug abuse and the Vietnam war. In 1996 she wrote twelve poems that were published in the Senate Hansard of 19 June 1997.

Eldridge was a book reviewer for the Canberra Times and the Australian Book Review, and became the first literature co-ordinator for the ACT Arts Council in 1986. She was writer-in-residence at Darwin High School in 1989, received an ACT Arts Bureau Literary Fellowship in 1992 and an Australia Council Literary Board Grant 1994.

She was a member of Seven Writers - a group of seven Canberra-based women writers whose work 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, which was an anthology of short stories about life in Canberra. The work received an ACT Bicentennial Award.

Eldridge’s other awards included: the Robin Hood Committee Annual Literature Competition (1972); the Canberra Times/Commonwealth Bank national Short Story Award (1981); the Syme Community Newspapers Short Story Competition (1983) and International Year of the Family Award in the NSW State Literary Awards (1994).

Marian Eldridge was instrumental in establishing the ACT Writers Centre and in the last few months of her life she expressed a desire to further nurture writers. Through a cash donation from her estate, the Marian Eldridge Award was established in 1998, under the auspices of the National Foundation for Australian Women, to encourage an aspiring woman writer to undertake a literary activity such as a short course of study, or to complete a project, or attend a writers’ week or a conference. Six awards have been given to date.

Eldridge Crescent is named after her in the Canberra suburb of Garran where she lived and wrote for 30 years.

View the full record at Australian Women's Register

Related people and organisations

Resources for Marian Favel Clair Eldridge

Selected resources (5)

Australian Women's Register

  1. Springfield
    Eldridge, Marian
    [1992]
    Published: University of Queensland Press
  2. The Division of Love: Stories
    Barbalet, Margaret et al
    [1995]
    Published: Penguin
  3. Collection of Marian Eldridge photographs
    [1994]
  4. National Library of Australia: Papers of Marian Eldridge, 1954-1996
    The collection comprises personal correspondence, financial papers, correspondence concerning the writing and publication of her various works, handwritten drafts, typescripts, copy-edit and page proofs, notes and research material, and book reviews.
    MS 9227
  5. National Library of Australia: Interview with Marian Eldridge [Interviewer: Heather Rusden] (February 1993 - March 1993)
    Sound Recording, 1 x 90 min. digital audio tape + 2 x 10" reels.
    ORAL TRC 2919

Resources by Marian Favel Clair Eldridge (6)

  1. Walking the dog, and other stories [Marian Eldridge]
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Book, Audio book : 1984-1986 ]
    At 43 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 23.849)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 23.849)

  2. The wild sweet flowers : Alvie Skerritt stories / Marian Eldridge
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Book, Audio book : 1994-1996 ]
    At 48 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 23.849)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 23.849)

  3. Papers of Marian Eldridge
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Unpublished : 1942-1997 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 11.794)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 11.794)

  4. The wild sweet flowers / Marian Eldridge
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Book : 1994 ]
    Languages: Undetermined
    At 2 libraries
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 8.972)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 8.972)

  5. Marian Eldridge interviewed by Heather Rusden
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Sound : 1993 ]
    At National Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 8.342)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 8.342)

  6. Marian Eldridge reads from her book 'The woman at the window' at the Australian Defence Force Academy / Marian Eldridge
    Eldridge, Marian, 1936-1997
    [ Video : 1990 ]
    At ADFA Library
    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 5.22)

    This resource is very relevant to your query (score: 5.22)

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  1. Eldridge, Marian Favel Clair (1936-1997)
    ... Marian Eldridge was an acclaimed short-story writer, novelist and poet, and was instrumental in ...
    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.177)

    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.177)

  1. Website: Australian Women's Archives Project
    www.womenaustralia.info
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    View 46 matching archived pages
    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.123)

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  2. Website: Putting skirts on the sacred benches : women candidates for the New South Wales Parliament
    www.womenaustralia.info
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    This resource is likely to be relevant to your query (score: 0.091)

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  3. Website: ACT VET half-yearly outlook
    www.publishing.act.gov.au
    Matching pages:
    • S99031 - 19/5/2003
    • ... 2614 CAMERON MARIAN ELIZABETH MANUKA CHILD CARE CENTRE FLINDERS WAY MANUKA ACT 2603 CAMERON SUZANNE...
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  1. Foreign service list
    United States. Dept. of State
    [ Book : 1868 ]
    read online at Open Library/Internet Archive
    View online
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

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  1. Family Notices
    The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1956) Saturday 11 August 1956 p 16 Family Notices
    ... - ELDRIDGE. - Mr. and Mrs. B. A. Stockfeld, of The Gap, Lancefield, have pleasure in announcing the engagement of their daughter, Marian Favel Clair, to Kenneth George, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. V. F. Eldridge, of Walden, Anderson street, Lily Lily- dale. WILLETT-NICHOLS. - The engagement ls announced ... 356 words
    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.009)

    This resource may have relevance to your query (score: 0.009)

  2. COUNTRY INTERMEDIATE EXAMINATION RESULTS LIST OF SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES
    The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954) Friday 26 January 1945 p 6 Detailed lists, results, guides
    ... Richard 1 Santich Oscar Satterthwalte Themas D Senior Douglas L Sha Dorothy J Sin clair Brian Smith Craham ... Clark Douglas L Croker Nancy J Dewhlrst H«len J Dowell Joan M Eldridge Betty Facer June P Fairall ... 22424 words
    This resource may only be vaguely related to your query: matching terms may only have been found in the full text contents of the resource (score: 0)

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