Paradise is a place

Paradise is a Place is an essay in images and words, offering a glimpse into the pleasures of being a child. Sandy Edwards' evocative photographs, taken over eight summers in the mythic landscape of the far south coast of New South Wales - amid spotted gum forests edged by sea - chronicle a young girl's passage from childhood to adolescence. Her luminous and moody portraits emphasise the vulnerability and freedom of childhood. Novelist Gillian Mears' childhood was characterised by idyllic camps with a Field Naturalists Club on beach and mountain. Here she writes of those years with a camera's eye for detail and nuance, with the honesty and insight that mark all her work. Her essay is a meditation on innocence, memory, the act of seeing, and the particular poignancy of auntly love. AUTHORS' DETAILSHighly acclaimed in Australia and overseas, Gillian Mears has twice won a Commonwealth Writers Prize: in the Regional First Book Prize category in 1989 for her collection of short stories, Ride a Cock Horse, and the Regional Best Book Prize in 1996 for her novel The Grass Sister. In 1990 The Mint Lawn won the Vogel/Australian prize, and in the same year she received the Marten Bequest Scholarship. She lives and works near Grafton in northern New South Wales. Sandy Edwards is one of Australia's leading portrait photographers. Her exhibitions include Welcome to Brewarinna (1990) and Paradise is a Place (1996). She has been widely published, particularly in Melbourne's Age newspaper, and produced the photographs for Roberta Sykes' book Murrawina: Aboriginal Women of Achievement (published in 1993). She is collected in major institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia. Since 1991 she has been co-director of Stills Gallery in Sydney. SALES POINTS***A superbly designed and produced book that will find a ready market among gift buyers.***Gillian Mears' high profile lends selling power to this book: her 20,000-word autobiographical essay is totally compelling and as beautifully written as her fiction.*** Paradise is a Place evolved from a highly successful photo exhibition of the same name at Stills Gallery, where Sandy Edwards is co-director, in 1996.