Ellen Dymphna Cusack AM (21 September 1902 – 19 October 1981) was an Australian writer and playwright.
Personal life
Born in Wyalong, New South Wales, Cusack was educated at Saint Ursula's College, Armidale, New South Wales and graduated from the University of Sydney with an honours degree in arts and a diploma in Education. She worked as a teacher until she retired in 1944 for health reasons. Her illness was confirmed in 1978 as multiple sclerosis. She died at Manly, New South Wales on 19 October 1981.
Career
Cusack wrote twelve novels (two of which were collaborations), eleven plays, three travel books, two children's books and one non-fiction book. Her collaborative novels were Pioneers on Parade (1939) with Miles Franklin, and Come In Spinner (1951) with Florence James.
The play Red Sky at Morning was filmed in 1944, starring Peter Finch. The biography Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid, to which Cusack wrote an introduction and helped the author write, was produced as the film Caddie in 1976. The novel Come In Spinner was produced as a television series by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 1989, and broadcast in March 1990.
Family
Her younger brother, John, was also an author, writing the war novel They Hosed Them Out under the pseudonym John Beede, which was first published in 1965; an expanded edition under the author's real name, John Bede Cusack, was published in 2012 by Wakefield Press, edited and annotated by Robert Brokenmouth.
Activism
Cusack advocated social reform and described the need for reform in her writings. She contributed to the world peace movement during the Cold War era as an antinuclear activist. She and her husband Norman Freehill were members of the Communist Party and they left their entire estates to the Party in their wills.
Contribution and recognition
Cusack was a foundation member of the Australian Society of Authors in 1963. She had refused an Order of the British Empire, but was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1981 for her contribution to Australian literature.
In 2011, Cusack was one of 11 authors, including Elizabeth Jolley and Manning Clark, to be permanently recognised by the addition of brass plaques at the Writers' Walk, Sydney.
Plays
Safety First, 1927
Shallow Cups, 1933
Anniversary, 1935
Red Sky at Morning, performed 1935; published 1942
Morning Sacrifice, 1943
Comets Soon Pass, 1943
Call Up Your Ghosts, with Miles Franklin, 1945
Stand Still Time, 1946
Pacific Paradise, 1955
Novels
Jungfrau (1936) Pioneers on Parade (1939) with Miles Franklin Come In Spinner (1951) with Florence James Say No to Death (1951) Southern Steel (1953) Caddie, the Story of a Barmaid (1953) [Introduction only] The Sun in Exile (1955) Heatwave in Berlin (1961) Picnic Races (1962) Black Lightning (1964) The Sun is Not Enough (1967) The Half-Burnt Tree (1969) A Bough in Hell (1971)
Nonfiction
Chinese Women Speak. Angus & Robertson. Sydney. 1958. Holidays Among the Russians. Heinemann. London. 1964. Illyria Reborn. Heinemann. London. 1966. Mary Gilmore A Tribute. Australasian Book Society. London. 1965. A Window in the Dark. National Library of Australia. Canberra. 1991.
Children's literature
Kanga-Bee and Kanga-Bo. Botany House. Sydney. 1945. Four Winds and a Family with Florence James. Shakespeare Head Press. London. 1947.
References
Sources
Dymphna Cusack bibliography
North, Marilla. (2007) "Cusack, Ellen Dymphna (Nell) (1902–1981)". Entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press Spender, Dale (1988) Writing a New World: Two Centuries of Australian Women Writers, London: Pandora
Further reading
North, Marilla (2013) Laying the Foundations of a Writer's Life: Dymphna Cusack (1902-81) (essay).