BIO

Bumf

I grew up in Melbourne, the middle child in a middle-class Jewish family. I would describe us as secular Jews, yet our Jewishness was important, culturally and as a source of identity.  I attended MLC (Methodist Ladies College – how very quaint that now sounds) from prep to matriculation.

My mother was a reader, books were always available. I started reading very early. If my head was in a book, I was left alone – a great privilege in the crowded world of the family. I would read before school and after school, I would read through entire weekends. If at that time I were to answer honestly what I wanted to be when I grew up, it would have been a character in my favourite novel of the moment. But I would never have answered honestly. Reading was private, reading wrapped itself around your most special desires – too fragile, too precious to be exposed.

It was around the age of 8 that I realised that the books I loved were actually written by a real person. From that time on I wanted to be a novelist.

Music has been another enduring love. I started learning the piano the year I turned 8. Short on both talent and application, I did, however, reach a reasonable standard. It has left me with the ability to play (extremely badly these days), and it has given me a great love of music. I go to concerts – Melbourne’s new Recital Centre has been a gift to this music lover – and I listen to music at home and on the move. Music is cemented to mind and heart, I cannot imagine how to live without it.
I’ve drawn directly on my love of music in two of my novels, FACING THE MUSIC, and most recently in THE MEMORY TRAP. One of the main characters in my latest, Ramsay Blake, is a pianist of world renown. I’ve always believed that if you have to do research for your novels, it may as well be in areas that interest you. For the character of Ramsay, I’ve spent hours immersing myself in the piano repertoire – from Bach, through the romantics, on to Messaien. I’ve had a wonderful few years.

In 1968, I enrolled at Monash University to study science. I threw myself into the politics and I took a far more lakadaisical approach to my studies. It didn’t matter: I was going to be a writer. But I did need to earn a living. It was during that year that I decided to become a speech pathologist. Working in the area of spoken communication seemed entirely compatible with what I wanted to do with the written word.

Me, Gino, 1973ishAfter graduating as a speech pathologist, I spent the next 15 years working for what was then known as the Spastic Society – now Scope. I worked with children with cerebral palsy, in particular, intelligent children who were severely physically disabled with no functional speech, and no possibility of their gaining the physical ability to speak. These children had great receptive language but no way of expressing themselves. I worked with them closely, helping them acquire a symbolic form of communication, in their case one based on reading and spelling. The written word.

I was involved at this time with the development of electronic communication aids for use by people who were unable to speak. These were pioneering days.

While working as a speech pathologist I was writing at night and on weekends, short stories and two practice novels, and finally GRACIOUS LIVING, which was accepted by Penguin and published in 1989. There have been 6 more novels since then, as well as many articles and long essays.

And I travelled. I lived in London as a 21-year-old and have returned many times since. London features in all my novels. New York is another favourite city. My school friend, Jan, moved there in the early 1970s and I visit there every couple of years. I am very attached to the Upper West Side and this provides one of the locations for my new novel THE MEMORY TRAP. Peru and Bolivia were early travel destinations.


As for a personal life, I’ve always had one: a string of boyfriends from my teenage years, to my first great love, with whom I lived for a number of years. There followed an old school friend who was a passionate fixture in my life for a long time.
But it is my last relationship which is the most significant. Dorothy Porter and I met in 1992 on the Victorian Women’s Writers’ Train. She was a poet, I was a novelist. She was an entrenched Sydney girl, I was a devoted Melbourne girl.

In 1993 Dot moved to Melbourne. We lived together, we worked together and we travelled together. We went to Antarctica, to Botswana and Tanzania; we crossed the Canadian Rockies. In Australia we went to Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef and the Top End – all of them several times.

In 1998 we bought a house in inner Melbourne. There we lived until Dot’s death in December, 2008. It is where I still live.

24 thoughts on “BIO”

  3. Jenny Ackland

    Hi Andrea, Jenny Ackland here. This is a beautiful bio page and I especially love that pic of you and Dorothy in hats raising glasses in the sunshine. Nice to see you online, all the best x

    Reply ↓
  5. Matilda

    Your style is really unique in comparison to other people I have read stuff from.
    Thank you for posting when you’ve got the opportunity, Guess I’ll just bookmark this page.

    Reply ↓
  6. Angela Carey

    Reunion was a powerful novel – I wish it was acknowledged more. The life long unrequited love , the disappointing career of a brilliant academic , the fickleness of friendship. ….. and the emotions invoked by third glass of wine. Life is not fair and Goldsmith is not a writer of fairy tales.

    Reply ↓
  7. Ms Dolma Beck

    Hi Andrea, wow.. 25 pages into
    ” the Memory Trap”… My first book of yours.. Already, I’m hooked. I have been reading Karl Ove Knausgaard s
    Book two.. But needed to have a breather. Don’t know where I read a review of yours, but it sounded intense enough for me.. Now that I have it, then found you on google, I can place you.
    But , always, it’s the work that draws me in. Love that you have this site, love that you write the blogs(though, I’ll find them again, when I’ve finished this book).
    Anyway. I will seek out your other works, after this read. Already, I sense a strong connection to your energy.
    Yes. Books can heal. Can strengthen. Can liberate. Thanks for yours. Regards.

    Reply ↓
  8. jean Porter

    What an interesting fulfilling life, that you have described so well .The picture of Invented Lives is such a good one and the ones with Dorothy are fabulous.Love J

    Reply ↓
  9. marty211udc

    Hi there Andrea,I was speaking to a dear friend on Wednesday and wishing him a happy 70th birthday .Geoffry Quinn…he travelled on the same tram as you and my cousin Vivienne Morton to his school Xavier and yours MLC.I have memories of you and my cousin.My daughter Vira Higgins is at Armidale Uni in the faculty of Neuro Science and Robotics continuing her work with children on the Autism spectrum.My wife and I just read your piece on Iris Murdoch and enjoyed it very much.Good health to you and your continued work regards Marty Rubenstein

    Reply ↓
    1. Andrea Goldsmith Post author

      Oh my, such a tiny world. The 69 tram was a world unto itself, adding spark and drama to going to school. Of course I remember Vivienne, she used to get on the tram near Scotch College, and I remember a MICHAEL Quinn, who I was a bit besotted with for a term or two, but not a Geoffrey Quinn. Thank you so much for writing to me. And all the very best to you and your family.

      Reply ↓
  10. Lesley

    Your life sounds wonderful very rich and
    exciting.
    I look forward to reading one of your books
    if not more. 🤗

    Reply ↓
    1. Andrea Goldsmith Post author

      Thanks, Lesley. I try to make the most of the moments – whether walking, or talking, or reading, or whatever. Have a look at the Invented Lives Link, What Travel has Taught me (there was hard copy in the Age and SMH 19/4/19).
      I actually think the best of an author goes into the fiction. So I do hope you will read one of my novels, and I similarly hope you enjoy it.

      Reply ↓
    1. Andrea Goldsmith Post author

      And I have the home movies to prove it: transferred from celluloid to videotape (how quaint that sounds), to DVD. Probably time for a new technological upgrade. Lifelong friends are indeed a gift.

      Reply ↓
      1. marty211udc

        I am currently working on our family tree and in particular the Russian/Lihtuanian/Northern Poland area and I am smiling as I remember how my very snobbish mother talked about the northern Poles and how both her sister (Marie Mortons mother,Vivienne Mortons grand mother) and my mother both married Polish men.
        We live in an area called Upper Duroby the same distance from Tweed heads as my mother and aunt lived from Poland about 20K.
        No such bigotry is alive here..hope you are well and thriving and no doubt in the near future you may come to the Byron Writers festival only 60 K from us
        best Wishes Andrea
        Marty Rubenstein

  13. Liz Barr

    Hi Andrea
    I worked with you at Glen Waverley in1980/82.
    YourDepartment was like Magic to me with your patience and skills work with those amazing Kids
    I often think my time there -It was such a time of learning.
    Best wishes for your future & condolences on losing Dot.
    Lotsaluv
    Sister Liz (ex O’ Neill)

    Reply ↓
  14. Liz Barr

    Hi Andrea
    I worked with you at Glen Waverley in1980/82.
    YourDepartment was like Magic to me with your patience and skills work with those amazing Kids
    I often think my time there -It was such a time of learning.
    Best wishes for your future & condolences on losing Dot.
    Lotsaluv
    Sister Liz (ex O’ Neill)

    Reply ↓
  15. Liz Barr

    Hi Andrea
    I worked with you at Glen Waverley in1980/82.
    YourDepartment was like Magic to me with your patience and skills working with those amazing Kids
    I often think my time there -It was such a time of learning.
    Best wishes for your future & condolences on losing Dot.
    Lotsaluv
    Sister Liz (ex O’ Neill)

    Reply ↓
  16. Sherryn Danaher

    Hi Andrea
    It’s Sherryn (Caldwell at MLC).
    Here’s the short version of a very long story. My dear Aunt Zoe died February 2020 and I’m taking off for NY in 2 weeks to assist my cousin to clear out one large house. My plan is to incorporate this task with a writing project and I’m writing to ask if you could help me with a bit of direction as to how to make it happen.
    Could we perhaps meet for chat over coffee?
    Cheers
    Sherryn
    P.S. recently read Invented Lives and loved it.

    Reply ↓
  17. Lorraine Barrett

    I found your book “invented lives” so inspiring Andrea. It must give many courage and hope. I am 81 now and attempting to illustrate my children’s book. I wrote during Covid lockdown and you inspire me to keep going. I will find some of your other books to read.
    Best wishes. Lorraine barrett

    Reply ↓

Leave a comment