Gregory Day is an Australian novelist, poet, and musician.

Life

Gregory Day is a novelist, poet, essayist and musician based in Victoria, Australia. He is well known for novels which document generational, demographic, and environmental change on the 21st-century coast of Victoria, Australia. He has been much acclaimed for his musical compositions and field recordings, notably his settings and singing of the poetry of William Butler Yeats on the album , and his project , which narrates in song the building of the Great Ocean Road in southwest Victoria in the years following The Great War. Day is also the co-founder with artist and book designer, Sian Marlow, of the fine press limited edition literature and music publisher, Merrijig Word & Sound Co.

Awards and nominations

• Commonwealth Writers' Prize, South East Asia and South Pacific Region, Best First Book, 2006: The Patron Saint of Eels — shortlisted

• ALS Gold Medal, 2006: The Patron Saint of Eels — winner

• New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, 2008: Ron McCoy's Sea of Diamonds: A Novel — shortlisted

• Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, 2011: The Neighbour's Beans — winner

• Manly Artist Book Award, 2017: A Smile at Arm's Length — winner

• Tasmanian Literary Award, Tasmania Book Prize, 2017: Archipelago of Souls — shortlisted

• Nature Conservancy, Australia Nature Writing Prize, 2019: — shortlisted

• Miles Franklin Award, 2019: A Sand Archive — shortlisted

• Patrick White Award, 2020 — winner

• Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing Prize, 2021 – winner

• Miles Franklin Award, 2024: The Bell of the World – shortlisted

• Blake Poetry Prize, 2026: The Church Was Strangely Empty But The Day Outside Was Full — longlisted

Bibliography

Novels

• The Patron Saint of Eels (2005)

Essays

Artist Books

• visitors - with Jiri Tibor Novak (2012)

• http://www.merrijigwordandsound.com/asmileatarmslength.html

Poetry

• Six Different Ways (1999) — with Kieran Carroll and Michael Farrell etc.

• (2003)

• (2016)

• (2025)

Music

• Untitled Red: No Evangelism (1992)

• Barroworn: Mangowak Days (1995)

• (1998)

• Trace soundtrack with Silver Ray (2003)

• (2005)

• (2015)

• ‘’O’ To The Bough Of The Blackwood Tree: Retrospective album’’ (2026)

Interviews & Presentations

• "ABC Radio National Books and Arts" http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/gregory-day/6569358 July 2015

• "ABC Radio National Book Show" http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2247096.htm - 21 May 2008

• "Paperbark Words on The Bell Of The World" https://paperbarkwords.blog/2024/07/22/the-bell-of-the-world-by-gregory-day/ July 2024

• "Towards An Ethics Of Receptivity: Reading Gregory Day's The Bell Of The World - Séminaire n°1 - Université Grenoble Alpes - Peter Mathews (University of Macau) 15/10/2024" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3fYiV0t9f0

• "The Leaf Bookshop Interview with Gregory Day on Southsightedness - 30 Authors in 30 Days March 2025" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z01Rsw8FZCg

• "ABC Radio National - The Music Show's Andrew Ford interviews Gregory Day about Southsightedness" https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/kamasi-washington-fearless-movement-gregory-day-southsightedness/105222276

References