This talk will explore the phenomenon of Ivan Southall and his influence on a generation of young readers and emerging writers, including his influence on nine-year-old Gabrielle Carey, who fell in love with the author after reading To the Wild Sky in 1968. Almost fifty years later Gabrielle returned to his work, examining his papers at the National Library of Australia. She will recount how and why she gradually fell out of love with her once-adored childhood literary hero, who was both brilliant and deeply flawed, as a writer, as well as a husband and father.

Gabrielle Carey published her first co-written book, Puberty Blues, in 1979. She has since written biography, autobiography, memoir, essays and articles. Her most recent book, Moving Among Strangers: Randolph Stow and My Family (UQP 2013), was the joint winner of the 2014 Prime Minister’s Award for Non-Fiction and was short-listed for the 2015 National Biography Award. In 2017 she was awarded a NLA Fellowship to research the life and work of Ivan Southall, chiefly through his vast correspondence with his young readers. She teaches non-fiction writing at the University of Technology Sydney.