Danielle Wood
As herself, Danielle Wood has written several books including The Australian/Vogel’s prize-winning The Alphabet of Light and Dark and Mothers Grimm. As ‘Angelica Banks’, and with fellow Tasmanian writer Heather Rose, she has written the Tuesday McGillycuddy books, which are published in Australia, Germany and the USA. Her debut as ‘Minnie Darke’, Star-crossed, has been published in over 25 international territories, and the follow-up The Lost Love Song was released in this year in Australia. She teaches writing at the University of Tasmania, and cannot rule out adding any further identities to her stable.
Photo: Karen Brown Photography.
All essays by Danielle Wood
W for Wood
Names, in general, matter. But how much, and why, exactly, does an author’s name matter? And how much does it matter if one or more of the names you write under isn’t the one you use for dentist appointments and phone bills? I ponder these questions on my own account, but also because I’m so often asked about my multiple writing identities. This hasn’t happened only at writing festivals and book events (back in the days when they were still a thing), but also at parties (ditto) when I was one margarita down and minding my business over by the guacamole.
The Harsh Light of Day: Blue Skies by Helen Hodgman
It is common for Tasmanian literature to be softlit with the kinds of autumnal colours that are so flattering to sandstone convict ruins, a contrast to the red dust and white gums of much mainland Australian writing. Helen Hodgman turns up the intensity, creating a glare under which she examines human desperation and ugliness. It is usual, in writing about Tasmania, for dawns and dusks to proliferate. Instead, Hodgman gives us broad daylight—precisely, a never-ending three o’clock.’