{{Short description|Australian novelist and poet}} {{Use British English|date=August 2014}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Amy Witting | image = | caption = | birth_name = Joan Austral Fraser | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1918|01|26}} | birth_place = Sydney, Australia | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2001|09|18|1918|01|26}} | death_place = Sydney, Australia | other_names = De Guesclin, Joan Austral Levick | known_for = | education = | employer = | occupation = Novelist, poet and teacher | title = | spouse = Les Levick | partner = | children = 1 | parents = | relatives = | signature = | website = [https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20051115130000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/24743/20051116-0000/lythrumpress.com.au/witting/index.html Amy Witting website]{{cbignore|bot=medic}} | footnotes = }}
'''Amy Witting''' (26 January 1918 – 18 September 2001) was the pen name of Australian novelist and poet Joan Austral Fraser, born '''Joan Austral Fraser'''.<ref name="Miels">{{cite web|title=Amy Witting website |publisher=National Library of Australia |work=Pandora Archive |url=https://lythrumpress.com.au/witting/index.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070829234420/http://www.lythrumpress.com.au/witting/index.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=29 August 2007 |accessdate=4 August 2007 }}</ref> She has been described as one of Australia's "finest fiction writers, whose work was full of the atmosphere and colour of times past".<ref name ="PC">Craven, Peter (2001) "Tell that woman I'll publish any word she writes", ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', 25 September 2001, p. 35</ref>
==Life== Amy Witting was born Joan Austral Fraser in the Sydney suburb of Annandale and was raised Catholic. She had "melancholy memories of a repressive family life" and remembered the nuns at her school, St Brendan's College, as being "obsessed with the torments of hell".<ref name ="BJ">Jefferis, Barbara (2001) "Late bloomer, shining light: Amy Witting, Writer, 1918–2001", ''The Sydney Morning Herald'', 25 September 2001, p. 35</ref> She suffered from tuberculosis as a child.<ref name ="MC">Connolly, Margaret (2001) "Her secret to success? Smoking and drinking", The Sydney Morning Herald, 25 September 2001, p. 35</ref>
She attended Fort Street Girls' High School. She studied languages at the University of Sydney, where she met figures including James McAuley, Harold Stewart, and Dorothy Auchterlonie Green.<ref name="Flinders">{{cite web|title=An introduction to the life and work of Amy Witting: Australian realist fiction writer and poet |publisher=Flinders University |url=http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/Witting/Biography.html |accessdate=3 August 2007 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050816212050/http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/Witting/Biography.html |archivedate=16 August 2005 }}</ref> Subsequently, she earned a Diploma of Education at Teachers College and became a school teacher. Tuberculosis recurred in her early adulthood, leading to time spent in a sanatorium which "gave her, for a time, the peace and solitude she always craved".<ref name ="BJ" />
On 28 July 1934, at age 16, one of her poems, written under the pseudonym '''De Guesclin''', was published in ''The Sydney Morning Herald''.<ref name = "Miels" /> Witting always wrote under a pseudonym. She adopted "Amy Witting" from a promise she made to herself "never to give up on consciousness", to "always remain 'witting'" rather than "unwitting".<ref name = "Flinders" />
Witting married Les Levick, a fellow high school teacher, in 1948; they had one son, Greg.<ref name ="BJ"/> She continued to write until her death from cancer in 2001, a few weeks after the publication of ''After Cynthia'', her final novel.
==Career== For most of Witting's career, teaching English and French and earning a living took precedence, with writing done in her spare time.<ref name = "Miels" /> Established Australian writer Thea Astley, who taught with Witting at Cheltenham Girls High School, was impressed by one of her stories, ''Goodbye, Ady, Goodbye, Joe'', and encouraged her to submit it for publication.<ref name = "Flinders" /> It was published in ''The New Yorker'' in April 1965. The poet Kenneth Slessor reportedly told Thea Astley to "tell that woman I'll publish any word she writes".<ref name ="PC"/>
In 1974, using the pseudonym Chris Willoughby, Witting wrote a lampoon for ''Tabloid Story'' prompted by her anger at "the sexism of the Frank Moorhouse/Michael Wilding ''tabloid Story'' tales of sex with an unconscious drugged girl at a party".<ref name ="BJ"/> Her story caused outrage among parents, politicians, and teachers; the Minister for Education accused her of corrupting children and stated in Parliament that "Amy Witting is a scribbler on lavatory walls".<ref name ="BJ"/> However, this controversy did not derail her career, and three years later she became mistress of modern languages at North Sydney Girls' High School.<ref name ="BJ"/>
Witting's significant literary success came late in life, particularly after retirement allowed her to devote more time to writing. Her first novel, ''The Visit'', was published in 1977 by editor Beatrice Davis. However, Davis rejected Witting's second novel, ''I for Isobel'', stating "No mother has ever behaved so badly", and McPhee Gribble also rejected it, commenting, "It's difficult to see what market you had in mind for it".<ref name ="MC"/> Despite this, it was published by Penguin Books in 1990 and became an instant best seller.<ref name = "MC"/> The publication of this book brought her talent wider recognition.<ref name ="PC"/>
Critic Peter Craven suggests that while Witting's "poetry is the work of a writer who has mastery of any meaning she wishes to convey," her fiction "took some time to reach fruition, partly because the publishing climate which would be receptive to Witting's brand of realism had to wait the advent of such writers as Helen Garner."<ref name ="PC"/> Craven writes that "Witting was a great master of realism, a naturalist who could render a nuance in a line that might take a lesser writer a page."<ref name ="PC"/>
Witting's last three works – ''Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop'', ''Faces and Voices'', and ''After Cynthia'' – were written under challenging circumstances, as her sight and hearing were failing, and she was battling cancer.<ref name ="MC"/>
==Awards and nominations== *1990: Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award for ''I for Isobel'' *1993: Patrick White Award *2000: Winner of The Age Book of the Year Fiction Prize for ''Faces and Voices'' *2000: Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award for ''Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop'' *2002: Posthumously appointed Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for "service to Australian literature as a novelist, poet and short story writer, and as a mentor to younger writers".<ref name = "hon">{{cite web |title= It's an Honour |publisher= Australian Government|work=It's an Honour|url= https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/1040518 |accessdate= 14 July 2007}}</ref>
==Bibliography== '''Novels''' * ''The Visit'' (1977) {{ISBN|0-17-005184-6}} * ''I for Isobel'' (1990) {{ISBN|0-14-012624-4}} * ''A Change in the Lighting'' (1994) {{ISBN|0-14-024937-0}} * ''Maria's War'' (1998) {{ISBN|1-86442-399-4}} * ''Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop'' (1999) {{ISBN|0-14-028634-9}} * ''After Cynthia'' (2001) {{ISBN|0-14-029915-7}}
'''Short story collections''' * ''Marriages'' (1990) * ''In and Out the Window'' (1995) * ''Faces and Voices'' (2000) * ''Selected Stories'' (2017)
'''Poetry''' * ''[http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/travel-diary-0396000 Travel Diary]'' (1985) {{ISBN|0-94-955706-4}} * ''[http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/beauty-is-the-straw-0519000 Beauty is the Straw]'' (1991) {{ISBN|0-20-717102-5}} * ''[http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/collected-poems-0051000 Collected Poems]'' (1998) {{ISBN|0-14-058903-1}}
==Notes== {{reflist}}
==References== * [https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20051115130000/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/24743/20051116-0000/lythrumpress.com.au/witting/index.html Amy Witting website] {{cbignore|bot=medic}}by Yvonne Miels * [https://web.archive.org/web/20050816212050/http://ehlt.flinders.edu.au/english/Witting/Biography.html An introduction to the life and work of Amy Witting: Australian realist fiction writer and poet], Flinders University, (Retrieved 3 August 2007) * [http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/witting-amy Amy Witting] at Australian Poetry Library
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Witting, Amy}} Category:1918 births Category:2001 deaths Category:Australian women short story writers Category:Writers from New South Wales Category:Members of the Order of Australia Category:Patrick White Award winners Category:Australian women poets Category:20th-century Australian poets Category:20th-century Australian women poets Category:20th-century Australian novelists Category:20th-century Australian women novelists Category:20th-century Australian short story writers