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Alice is a writer and lawyer. She was born in Footscray, and grew up in Braybrook, attending local primary and secondary schools in the Western suburbs, including Tottenham North Primary School, Footscray Girls Secondary College, Christ the King College Braybrook, and Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School.
She has had her short stories published in The Good Weekend, MEANJIN and The Other Side. In 2002 her story UNPOLISHED GEM was nominated for a Premier’s Literary Award, and in 2005 her story WORDS won The Other Side prose competition.
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UNPOLISHED GEM tells the story of growing up with a Chinese-Cambodian family in Australia, but it is not a story filled with Wild Swans or Falling Leaves. "This story does not begin on a boat," are the opening lines of the book, and so begins the quintessentially Australian setting of the story in Footscray Market, "a market filled with fat pigs and thin people." Armed with an ocker accent, Alice dives headfirst into schooling, romance and the getting of wisdom. Meanwhile, her mother becomes an Aussie Battler - an outworker, that is, her father starts up a chain of electrical appliance stores, and her grandmother blesses Father Government every day for giving old people money. |
Although Alice is currently practicing as a solicitor, she has worked extensively with both primary and secondary school students - as an art instructor, independent school teacher, and student mentor. Alice is also the Writer in Residence and pastoral care adviser at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne.
Alice has a deep passion and empathy for youth issues, and believes in the power of good humour (and not-so-good puns) to help surmount adversity. Alice has also appeared on radio with Richard Stubbs, John Safran and Father Bob Maguire in Sunday Nights with Safran, and Ramona Koval’s Book Show.
“There is something striking on every page of Unpolished Gem.”
– Helen Garner
“Unpolished Gem is virtuoso storytelling.”
– The Australian
“A triumph! Touching and poignant and remarkable!”
– John Safran, JJJ. |
