Biography
Joel Deane is an Australian poet, novelist, and speechwriter.
Deane, born in Melbourne, Australia, lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1990s, working as a technology journalist. He has also worked as a press secretary and speechwriter for the Australian Labor Party.
Deane's first novel, Another, was considered a ?striking debut? by Melbourne Weekly and "reminiscent of Tim Winton?s Cloudstreet" by Australian Book Review. His first collection of poetry, Subterranean Radio Songs, was short-listed for the 2006 Anne Elder Award, and has been called "brilliantly energetic" and "virtuosic" by Australian Book Review.
In 2010, Deane published The Norseman's Song to critical acclaim. Described by its publisher as "a stylish blend of gothic mystery and modern crime noir", the book balances two very different narratives, that of a C19th whaler trapped in the Arctic Circle alongside a contemporary Melbourne cab driver's night from hell. Peter Pierce, in the Sydney Morning Herald called it "a bold unfolding of a succession of nightmares, issuing from probable truths and from feverish imaginings, a striking juxtaposition of legendary past and seedy present", noting that "Deane belongs to a long line of yarn-spinners in Australian fiction from Henry Lawson to Frank Hardy to Peter Carey". ..
