The Shelf Life of Zora Cross – a presentation by Cathy Perkins
Tuesday, 22 September 2020 4.45 pm for 5 pm
via Zoom (link will be sent on booking)

Please book numbers are limited

Event ran by the Camberwell Historical Society
George Fernand- enquiries@chs.org.au

Australian poet and journalist Zora Cross caused a sensation in 1917 with her book Songs of Love and Life. Here was a demure-looking young woman, 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. 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.

Cathy Perkins’ biography The Shelf Life of Zora Cross, published in November 2019, has received outstanding reviews and was recently shortlisted for a NSW Premier’s History Award. Cathy will talk about her discovery of Zora Cross in the archives of the State Library of NSW, where she works as an editor, and the many pleasures and challenges in writing her life story.