Alan Marshall

Alan Marshall , (2 May 1902 – 21 January 1984) was an Australian writer, story teller, humanist and social documenter. He received the Australian Literature Society Short Story Award three times, the first in 1933. His best known book, I Can Jump Puddles (1955) is the first of a three-part autobiography. The other two volumes are This is the Grass (1962) and In Mine Own Heart (1963). Life and work Marshall was born in Noorat, Victoria. At six years old he contracted polio, which left him with a physical disability that grew worse as he grew older. From an early age, he resolved to be a writer, and in I Can Jump Puddles he demonstrated an almost total recall of his childhood in Noorat. The characters and places of his book are thinly disguised from real life: Mount Turalla is Mount Noorat, Lake Turalla is Lake Keilambete, the Curruthers are the Blacks, Mrs. Conlon is Mary Conlon of Dixie, Terang, and his best friend, Joe from the books, is Leo Carmody. Australian poet and contemporary, Hal Porter wrote in 1965 that Marshall was: ... the warmest and most centralized human being ... To walk with ease and nonchalance the straight, straight line between appearing tragic and appearing willfully brave is a feat so complex I should not like to have to rake in the dark for the super-bravery to accomplish it.During the early 1930s Marshall worked as an accountant at the Trueform Boot and Shoe Company, Clifton Hill and later wrote about life in the factory in his novel How beautiful are Thy Feet, 1949. Marshall wrote numerous short stories, mainly set in the bush. He also wrote newspaper columns and magazine articles. He traveled widely in Australia and overseas. He also collected and published Indigenous Australian stories and legends. His literary friends and associates included John Morrison and Clem Christesen.