Robert Power’s Followers (4)

Robert Power

Born

Dublin, The United Kingdom

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THE surprising thing about Professor Robert Power is that he had time to write Meatloaf in Manhattan, which has won the $2000 second prize in The Age short-story award.

By day, Power is principal for harm reduction at the Burnet Institute and has specialised for more than 25 years in HIV prevention. It has taken him around the world advising on public health and introducing social behavioural programs, most recently in a prison in Indonesia.

It helps that he has always written. Before leaving London five years ago, where he was a professor at University College, he not only wrote academic material but also produced journalism for publications such as the New Statesman magazine and Time Out. His first serious piece of journalism about the drug THE surprising thing about Professor Robert Power is that he had time to write Meatloaf in Manhattan, which has won the $2000 second prize in The Age short-story award.

By day, Power is principal for harm reduction at the Burnet Institute and has specialised for more than 25 years in HIV prevention. It has taken him around the world advising on public health and introducing social behavioural programs, most recently in a prison in Indonesia.

It helps that he has always written. Before leaving London five years ago, where he was a professor at University College, he not only wrote academic material but also produced journalism for publications such as the New Statesman magazine and Time Out. His first serious piece of journalism about the drugs world in South America was written while he was in Bogota.

''I don't watch television, I get up early and I write quickly,'' he says. His first novel, In Search of the Blue Tiger, which was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's unpublished manuscript award three years ago, is being published in March by Transit Lounge, he has another waiting for a spot in the publishing program, has finished a third and has embarked on a fourth.

Power's winning story tells of a man staying with a blind friend in New York who then himself pretends to be blind and inveigles his way through the defences of a lonely diner waitress. Power says he did once stay with a blind New York lawyer who stacked his apartment with braille copies of newspapers and recorded baseball moments from the radio. ''But otherwise the rest is fiction.''

One of the judges of the Age award, novelist Anson Cameron, said Meatloaf in Manhattan had a sort of one-foot-in-the-air clownishness rare in short stories, where reverence was often deemed mandatory. Its humility allowed it to be as ''deviously weighty as a good pop song''. And another judge, writer Catherine Ford, said it had a winning wit and a good grasp of structure, pace, the handling of character and dialogue. ''The first-person narrator plays a nice game with the reader, teasing, provoking, confounding. The author's voice was so appealing, I'd have been more than happy to keep reading.''

Born in Dublin, Robert now lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and his youngest son. In 2011 he was a winner in The Age Short Story Prize for his story Meatloaf in Manhattan.
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Combine Editions
Robert Power’s books

Average rating: 3.74 · 80 ratings · 19 reviews · 29 distinct works

	In Search of the Blue Tiger 3.45 avg rating — 31 ratings — published 2012 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tidetown really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Short and Happy Guide to the First Amendment (Short and Happy Series) by Robert Power, Mark Alexander 4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Swan Song of Doctor Malloy 3.50 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2013 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Persuasion and Dark Psychology: Dark secrets of psychology and the art of influencing people with persuasion techniques, nlp neuro linguistic programming and hypnotism 4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tell it to the Dog : a memoir of sorts 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Meatloaf in Manhattan 2.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2014 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Manipulation Psychology: The hidden art of attraction, how to learn to Speed Reading People and mind hacking through the psychology of persuasion, manipulation and the art of seduction 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tell It To The Dog 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	How to analyze people: A complete guide on how to use body language and improve your skills with people through mind control and dark psychology it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars