The University of Western Australia mourns the passing on 10 December of Emerita Professor Brenda Walker at the age of 67.
Brenda moved to UWA in 1984 to commence work as a lecturer in the Department of English. She retired in 2016 after a distinguished career that took her to the top of her profession.
Brenda is remembered as a gifted teacher, scholar and creative writer. Her literary career ran in parallel to her work in the academy. Indeed, Brenda was one of the founders—with Dennis Haskell, Van Ikin and Stephen Chinna—of the creative writing program at UWA in the 1990s.
Brenda led this program for many years, developing its methodology and nurturing generations of students. Her collection The Writer’s Reader (2002) was a seminal textbook for creative writing as a university discipline in Australia and was the first such book to draw largely on contributions from contemporary Australian writers.
That the creative writing program continues to flourish at UWA is one of Brenda’s lasting legacies.
Image: Prize-winning author, mentor, leader, friend and colleague Brenda Walker.
When creative writing doctorates were approved at UWA, Brenda became a mentor to the many Western Australian writers that came through that degree.
Her national reputation as a writer and critic also attracted aspiring interstate writers to the UWA program. Her students valued her unerring eye for craft, her passion for literary prose and her often wicked sense of humour. Brenda was a valued colleague and leader in the discipline of English and Literary Studies. She led the discipline from 2013 to 2015.
Brenda’s stature among students drew on her prize-winning books of fiction and memoir. Her novel, Crush (1991), won the TAG Hungerford Award for a first work of fiction. One More River (1993) was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards.
A third novel, Poe’s Cat, drew national acclaim, being shortlisted in the New South Wales and Victorian, as well as the Western Australian Premier’s Awards. The Wing of Night (2005) won three awards, including the Nita Kibble Award for the best book by an established woman writer, and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize.
Her next book was the autobiography, Reading by Moonlight: How Books Saved a Life (2010), a reflection on her experience of cancer and the role played by reading during her treatment and recovery. It won the Victorian Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and a second Nita Kibble Award. Her short story, ‘The Houses That Are Left Behind’ (2017), was selected for The O. Henry Prize Stories anthology in the US.
As a critic and scholar, Brenda made significant contributions to feminist criticism, Australian literature and creative writing studies. With David Brooks she edited Poetry and Gender: Statements and Essays in Australian Women’s Poetry and Poetics (1989).
With Delys Bird she edited Elizabeth Jolley: New Critical Essays (1991), and co-wrote the Introduction to Killing Women: Rewriting Detective Fiction (1993). She presented the 2011 Herbert Blaiklock Memorial Lecture at the University of Sydney, on the topic, ‘Alex Miller and Leo Tolstoy: Australian Storytelling in a European Tradition.’
After her retirement, Brenda remained connected to the University and to creative writing in Western Australia, continuing to supervise creative writing students with her trademark generosity of spirit.
She was a regular reviewer for Australian Book Review and was a widely admired senior figure in the Australian literary community. Her loss is deeply felt throughout the country. Brenda Walker was an outstanding servant of UWA and has left an enduring mark in this academy and beyond.
This obituary was written by Brenda's colleagues, UWA Chair of Australian Literature Professor Tony Hughes-d’Aeth and Senior Honorary Research Fellow at UWA's School of Humanities Associate Professor Kieran Dolin.