Kristin Otto

Kristin Otto was a member of the non-fiction judging panel for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards 2012-14. She is a bookseller and author of Yarra: A Diverting History of Melbourne’s Murky River (2005) and Capital: Melbourne When It Was the Capital City of Australia 1901-27 (2009). She lives in an area affected by the Black Saturday fires.

All essays by Kristin Otto

Review: Kristin Ottoon Robert Kenny

Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir by Robert Kenny University of Western Australia Press
260pp
$29.99 AU
Published August, 2013
ISBN 9781742585109

A perfect pyre: Gardens of Fire: An Investigative Memoir

Kenny was at home in Redesdale, country Victoria, on Saturday 7 February 2009. By mid-afternoon, an advancing column of smoke could be seen from his old farmhouse. He was prepared to defend what he describes as ‘most of my life … this house, library, paintings – my own and those by others – manuscripts, notebooks, sketchbooks, correspondence, photographs, family heirlooms’.