Haven’t I seen you before?Ī lot of people ask if they’ve seen me somewhere before, but they can’t remember where. I’m passionate about my family and friends, kids literature, the arts, education, and social justice. I’ve also been writing creative portraits of interesting people (writers, filmmakers, politicians, actors, teachers, and everyday people) for The Saturday Paper for four years. My books have been published in the US, UK and Australia. Having my short fiction collection Foreign Soil put on the 2018 VCE syllabus, and my first picture book The Patchwork Bike being listed as a Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour book and reviewed by the New York Times have been incredible career highlights. What have been the highlights of your career? My creative work explores humanity in all its complexities, including contemporary issues of racism, recycling, schoolyard bullying, family relationships, migration and displacement. She has guest taught short fiction, profile writing and arts journalism at a number of Australian universities, and also offers talks and workshops on portrait writing. Maxine has written portraits for The Saturday Paper for four years, including profiles of Hugh Jackman, Roxane Gay, Julian Assange, Uncle Jack Charles, Paul Barry, Catherine Deveny, and Tony Abbott. Longlisted for the Dobbie Literary Award 2015.Maxine Beneba Clarke delivers presentations on her short fiction collection Foreign Soil which is a VCE Literature text. ABIA Matt Richell Award for New Writers 2015. UTS Glenda Adams Debut Fiction, NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2015. Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award 2013.

Literary Fiction of the Year, Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) 2015. Winner: Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Novelist 2015. The young mother keeps writing the rejection letters keep arriving. Inside its covers, a desperate asylum seeker is pacing the hallways of Sydney's notorious Villawood detention centre, a seven-year-old Sudanese boy has found solace in a patchwork bike, an enraged black militant is on the warpath through the rebel squats of 1960s Brixton, a Mississippi housewife decides to make the ultimate sacrifice to save her son from small-town ignorance, a young woman leaves rural Jamaica in search of her destiny, and a Sydney schoolgirl loses her way. In Melbourne's western suburbs, in a dilapidated block of flats overhanging the rattling Footscray train lines, a young black mother is working on a collection of stories. This is contemporary fiction at its finest. It will challenge you it will have you by the heartstrings. In this collection of award-winning stories, Melbourne writer Maxine Beneba Clarke has given a voice to the disenfranchised, the lost, the downtrodden and the mistreated.

Foreign soil by maxine beneba clarke