Clift & Johnston
This page curates various ‘pieces’ about Charmian Clift, George Johnston and Martin Johnston, published over more than twenty years.
Somewhere other than Hydra?
What would have happened if Charmian Clift and George Johnston had made their home in Greece somewhere other than the island of Hydra? That is the hypothetical question explored in this article, published in the Hydra Book Club Journal, October 2023.
A Greek Odyssey (The Song of the Mermaid)
I was invited to the island of Kalymnos for the launch of the Greek translation of Charmian Clift’s first solo book Mermaid Singing. This account of my journey was published in the Good Weekend, 29 October 2022. You can find some additional photos on my News page.
Sneaky Little Revolutions, Selected Essays of Charmian Clift, Introduction
edited Nadia Wheatley, published by NewSouth, 2022.
Through the turbulent and transformative years of the 1960s, Charmian Clift made what she called ‘sneaky little revolutions’ in the column she wrote for the women’s pages of the Sydney Morning Herald and the Melbourne Herald. In the introduction to this new edition of her selected essays, I place these radical and lyrical pieces in the context of their time.
Remembering Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, published in The Weekend Australian, July 2019.
Fifty years on, the anniversary of the essayist’s death is an opportunity to celebrate the weekly ‘revolutions’ that played a significant part in the transformative change that was going on in our country during the 1960s.
Read the full article online
Author Note to The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift
Nadia Wheatley, HarperCollins, 2001.
In this preface to my biography of Charmian Clift, I set out my historiographical aims and methods. In particular I discuss my own status, as both insider and outsider to the family story, my feminist approach to the subject, and my aim ‘to present the life as Charmian herself lived it’.
High Valley Afterword
Nadia Wheatley, Ligature Digital Publishing, 2021.
High Valley, written collaboratively by Charmian Clift and George Johnston, won the Sydney Morning Herald Literary Prize in 1948. In this Afterword, written in 2021 for a new edition of the novel, I describe how the couple came to meet and fall in love, and how they wrote this novel together during the honeymoon period of their long partnership.
Walk to the Paradise Gardens Introduction
Nadia Wheatley, Ligature Digital Publishing, 2021.
Charmian Clift’s first solo novel, Walk to the Paradise Gardens is set in a fictionalised version of the coastal township of Kiama, where the author grew up. In this Introduction, written in 2021 for a new edition of the novel, I describe the writing process, and suggest something of Clift’s complex relationship with her hometown.
Lies and Silences
Nadia Wheatley, National Library of Australia, 20 October 2001.
Charmian Clift described her family as being ‘tremendous liars’. There are also significant silences in her biographical record. In this piece — originally given as a paper at the conference ‘The Secret Self: Exploring Biography and Autobiography' (National Library of Australia, 20 October 2001) — I describe the process and ethics of writing the story of Clift’s life.
An Australian Alter Ego: The 50th Anniversary of George Johnston’s My Brother Jack
Nadia Wheatley, The Monthly, May 2014.
Within a few years of its publication, My Brother Jack became more of a legend than a mere piece of fiction. To mark the 50th anniversary of the novel’s publication, I went to the Melbourne suburb where the author grew up to explore the origins of this Australian classic.
Remembering Martin Johnston
Nadia Wheatley, uploaded to Martin Johnston memorial website, June 2020.
A friend once asked me: ‘Did you realise that in Martin Johnston you chose the most damaged boy that you could find?’ Of course I didn’t. In this recollection, written to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Martin’s death, I reflect on the time we spent together in Sydney and Greece in the 1970s.