G. M. Glaskin
G. M. Glaskin was an Australian author born on December 16, 1923, in Perth, the eldest of seven children. His early life was marked by financial hardship, as he left school at age fifteen to support his family after his father fell ill. Glaskin served in the Royal Australian Navy during World War II and sustained serious injuries during the Battle of the Coral Sea, which spurred his writing career as he began dictating stories while recovering. He transitioned from various professions, including stockbroker and manager, to become a full-time writer, eventually achieving success with novels such as "A World of Our Own" and works that explore the lives of gay men.
His novels gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, with notable titles including "No End to the Way" and "The Man Who Didn't Count." He also experimented with themes of past lives and hypnosis, leading to the publication of several books on those subjects. Glaskin's work has been translated into ten languages, and his books for young readers remain on educational reading lists. He passed away on March 11, 2000, in Perth, leaving behind a legacy as a significant voice in LGBTQ literature and young adult fiction.
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G. M. Glaskin
- Born: December 16, 1923
- Birthplace: Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- Died: March 11, 2000
- Place of death: Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Biography
G. M. Glaskin was born on December 16, 1923, in Perth, Australia, the oldest of seven children. His parents were Gilbert Henry Glaskin, a clerk, and Delia Mary Gugeri Glaskin. He attended local schools but had to quit at age fifteen to help support the family after his father fell ill. He worked as auditor and a clerk before he turned twenty. His first significant writings, he said, were letters to a penpal, a boy in the Netherlands; the friendship continued for more than fifty years. Glaskin served as a seaman in the Royal Australian Navy at the beginning of World War II (from 1941 to 1942). He sustained severe injuries to his arms in the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942 and dictated his first short stories while recovering from his wounds in a military hospital.
In 1943 he was commissioned in Canada as a flying officer of the Royal Australian Air Force. Returning to Australia after the war, he worked as manager of a sporting goods company, sales statistician for Ford Motor Company of Australia, and then as a stockbroker during the 1950’s. Through these years he published short stories in periodicals and anthologies. His first novel, A World of Our Own, was published in 1955 and won a British Commonwealth Literary Award. After publishing two more, including A Change of Mind (1959), his first young-adult novel, he quit his job to become a full-time writer. His third novel, A Waltz Through the Hills (1961), was twice made into a feature film.
An important theme of Glaskin’s work was the lives of gay men. One of his earliest and best novels on this theme was No End to the Way (1965), which was published under the pseudonym Neville Jackson at his publisher’s insistence. His next novel about gay men, The Man Who Didn’t Count (1965), was published under his own name. He published several more novels, as well as collections of short stories, a memoir, and a travel book before serious neck and spinal injuries from a 1967 bodysurfing accident made it impossible for him to write for four years. In 1971 he underwent hypnotic-dream therapy with an Australian group called the Christos Experiment. He wrote about the Christos technique and his travels to Egypt to confirm details of past lives revealed to him through it, in three books, Windows of the Mind (1974), Worlds Within (1976), and A Door to Infinity: Proving the Christos Experience (1989). Being a full-time writer gave Glaskin the freedom to move about; he traveled widely, lived in Singapore for more than ten years, and went around the world by ship three times. He died on March 11, 2000, in Perth. Glaskin’s books about homosexuality were popular in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and his books for young readers still appear on schools’ reading lists. His work was translated into ten languages.