New book cover

Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s first female filmmaking team

Mandy
Sayer

 

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist
and non-fiction writer.

Mandy Sayer’s storytelling is unforgettable music.
Maxine Hong Kingston

Novelist and Professor

Mandy Sayer

 

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer.

Australian Gypsies: Their secret history

New book cover
Mandy Sayer’s storytelling is unforgettable music.
Maxine Hong Kingston

Novelist and Professor

About The Author

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. As the daughter of a musician, she spent her childhood and adolescence living a nomadic existence in Australia and America. Sayer’s work has been published in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author Louis Nowra, and their two dogs, Coco and Basil.

About The Author

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. As the daughter of a musician, she spent her childhood and adolescence living a nomadic existence in Australia and America. Sayer’s work has been published in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author Louis Nowra, and their two dogs, Coco and Basil.

Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters
Australia’s first female filmmaking team

An entertaining and inspiring biography of three sisters who transformed Australian cinema.

The trailblazing McDonagh sisters were the first women in Australia to form their own film production company. Between 1926 and 1933, while they were in their mid-twenties, these sassy sisters produced four feature films and a number of documentaries. The youngest, Paulette, was at the time one of only five women film directors in the world. Phyllis produced, art directed and conducted publicity. And the eldest, Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, acted superbly in all the female leads.

Together, the sisters transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush – and what they mocked as ‘haystack movies’ – into a thrilling, urban modernity. Their personal lives were just as adventurous, and their suitors included an internationally famous magician, a wealthy rubber broker, a defrocked Anglican priest, and a number of silent film stars.

In Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Mandy Sayer narrates the sisters’ remarkable story, from daughters of a respected Sydney surgeon with a love of theatre and the arts, to their first feature film, Those Who Love (1926), an instant hit, to their controversial final film, Two Minutes Silence (1933). Today, their most famous feature, The Cheaters, is frequently screened at international film festivals around the world, most notably in New York and London, to rapturous reviews.

“Gossipy, fascinating, and totally entertaining, a FABULOUS read, absolutely adored it.”

- Jacki Weaver

Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters
Australia’s first female filmmaking team

An entertaining and inspiring biography of three sisters who transformed Australian cinema.

The trailblazing McDonagh sisters were the first women in Australia to form their own film production company. Between 1926 and 1933, while they were in their mid-twenties, these sassy sisters produced four feature films and a number of documentaries. The youngest, Paulette, was at the time one of only five women film directors in the world. Phyllis produced, art directed and conducted publicity. And the eldest, Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, acted superbly in all the female leads.

Together, the sisters transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush – and what they mocked as ‘haystack movies’ – into a thrilling, urban modernity. Their personal lives were just as adventurous, and their suitors included an internationally famous magician, a wealthy rubber broker, a defrocked Anglican priest, and a number of silent film stars.

In Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters, Mandy Sayer narrates the sisters’ remarkable story, from daughters of a respected Sydney surgeon with a love of theatre and the arts, to their first feature film, Those Who Love (1926), an instant hit, to their controversial final film, Two Minutes Silence (1933). Today, their most famous feature, The Cheaters, is frequently screened at international film festivals around the world, most notably in New York and London, to rapturous reviews.

“Gossipy, fascinating, and totally entertaining, a FABULOUS read, absolutely adored it.”

- Jacki Weaver

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Australian Gypsies: Their secret history

Since the arrival of the First Fleet there have been Gypsies in Australia, yet their experiences have never been included in any official histories. In Australian Gypsies, award-winning memoirist and novelist Mandy Sayer weaves together a vivid, wideranging history that begins with the roots of the Romani culture, tracing the first Gypsy people to arrive in Australia (including James Squire, the colony’s first brewer) through to Gypsy families today, who share the stories of their ancestors and their lives.

With her unconventional, nomadic early life, Mandy Sayer has a unique insight into the lives of the people she meets, and a strong sense of the importance of their history. Given their blessing to tell their stories, Sayer also demolishes some longstanding but baseless myths along the way.

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. As the daughter of a musician, she spent her childhood and adolescence living a nomadic existence in Australia and America. Sayer’s work has been published in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author Louis Nowra, and their two dogs, Coco and Basil.

Australian Gypsies: Their secret history

Since the arrival of the First Fleet there have been Gypsies in Australia, yet their experiences have never been included in any official histories. In Australian Gypsies, award-winning memoirist and novelist Mandy Sayer weaves together a vivid, wideranging history that begins with the roots of the Romani culture, tracing the first Gypsy people to arrive in Australia (including James Squire, the colony’s first brewer) through to Gypsy families today, who share the stories of their ancestors and their lives.

With her unconventional, nomadic early life, Mandy Sayer has a unique insight into the lives of the people she meets, and a strong sense of the importance of their history. Given their blessing to tell their stories, Sayer also demolishes some longstanding but baseless myths along the way.

MANDY SAYER is an award-winning novelist and non-fiction writer. As the daughter of a musician, she spent her childhood and adolescence living a nomadic existence in Australia and America. Sayer’s work has been published in the US, UK, Germany, Brazil, Japan and China. She lives in Sydney with her husband, playwright and author Louis Nowra, and their two dogs, Coco and Basil.
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