![]() ![]() In 1967 she traveled to Europe, teaching for a time in London, where she renewed her friendship with actor and playwright Bill Garner. She won a scholarship to the University of Melbourne, where in 1965 she completed honors degrees in French and English.Īs she explains in "The Art of the Dumb Question" ( True Stories: Selected Non-Fiction, 1996), she began high-school teaching in 1966, working for the Victorian State Education Department for various periods over the next seven years. After attending state primary schools, Helen transferred in the fifth grade to The Hermitage, Geelong, a private girls' school, where, in her final year, she was dux of the school (student who attains the highest average in external examinations) and head prefect. ![]() The family remained in Geelong, apart from a four-year period at Ocean Grove, a township fourteen miles further down the coast. ![]() Garner was born 7 November 1942, the eldest of the six children of Bruce Colin Ford, a wool merchant, and Gweneth (née Gadsden) Ford, a kindergarten teacher in Geelong, a coastal city forty-five miles southwest of Melbourne. Her work is distinguished by a willingness to ask uncomfortable questions and expose hidden aspects of experience, and by a precision of expression that marks her as a stylist. In all her work-whether fiction, journalism, or screenwriting-Garner examines contemporary Australian society, particularly the relationship between personal (including sexual and domestic) responsibility and the broader society of the country. ![]()
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