Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird (born 1940) is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and essays. She has also written books on the art of writing, and has edited anthologies of essays and stories. In 2016, she was awarded the Patrick White Award.

Carmel Power was born in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1940, and educated there. She started teaching in 1961, and taught for twenty years. She now lives in Central Victoria. She is twice divorced, and has a daughter named Camilla. She published an early work as "Jack Power", Power being her original surname.

Bird has taught fiction writing at Melbourne, Deakin, Latrobe, Monash, Swinburne and RMIT Universities.

Her first collection of short stories, called Births, Deaths and Marriages, was published in 1983, and her most recent novel (2010) is Child of the Twilight, a novel concerned with medical science and faith. Her most recent collection of short fiction is My Hearts Are Your Hearts (2015), and her most recent non-fiction is Fair Game (2015).

• 1991 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for The Bluebird Cafe
• 1991 — shortlisted in Victorian Premier's Award for The Bluebird Cafe
• 1996 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for The White Garden
• 1996 — shortlisted in the NSW Premier's Award; the Aurealis Award; the Ned Kelly Award for The White Garden
• 1998 — shortlisted in the Miles Franklin Award for Red Shoes
• 2001 — winner of the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal at the Mildura Writer's Festival