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'Antonella Gambotto-Burke' (née Antonella Gambotto, born September 19, 1965) is an Australian author and journalist.
Gambotto-Burke has written one novel, ''The Pure Weight of the Heart'', two anthologies, ''Lunch of Blood'' and ''An Instinct for the Kill'', and a memoir, ''The Eclipse'', which has been published in three languages and is due to be published in two more in 2008. ''The Eclipse'' concerns her brother's suicide and her engagement to, and the death of, the late ''GQ'' editor Michael VerMeulen. Her best known comic interview - with Warwick Capper, a retired Australian footballer, and his wife - is included in ''The Best Australian Profiles'' (Black, 2004). "The best profiles lodge deep in the public mind, such as ... Antonella Gambotto's cheerfully dopey Warwick and Joanne Capper, which presaged by years the arrival of ''Kath & Kim''", wrote a critic in ''The Age'' on June 18, 2005. She is also a member of MENSA.

Contents

Biography

Bibliography

Film

Television

External links

Biography

Gambotto-Burke was born and raised on Sydney's North Shore, the first child and only daughter of Giancarlo Gambotto, whose lawsuit against WCP Ltd. changed Australian corporate law, made the front pages of ''The Australian Financial Review'' and ''The Australian'', and is still featured in corporate law exams.
She was first published in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' at the age of fifteen - a satire of poet Les Murray's "An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow", later included in Michele Field's anthology Shrinklit (1983) - and in ''The Australian'' at the age of eighteen. Her first short story was published in literary magazine ''Billy Blue'' in July, 1982.
In 1984, she moved to London, where she was employed as a music critic by ''NME''. Her review of Cliff Richard's concert inspired him to sue the music journal. She also wrote "A Man Called Horse", the ''ZigZag'' cover story of alternative rock star Nick Cave, in which she documented his heroin-induced stupor (in retaliation, he wrote a song about her and British journalist Mat Snow entitled "Scum". Gambotto-Burke wrote about the experience most recently in the September 2006 issue of ''Men's Style Australia'' magazine). The Cave interview, and the story behind it, are also included in her book Lunch of Blood, while Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds included a version of "Scum" on their 2005 box set, ''B-Sides And Rarities''.
Gambotto-Burke won UK ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine's New Journalist of the Year Award in 1988. That same year, she became engaged to the UK GQ editor Michael VerMeulen. In 1989 she returned to Sydney, after the demise of her relationship with VerMeulen, who would later die from a cocaine overdose at the age of 38 in 1995. Before leaving London, she wrote for ''The Independent on Sunday'', notably a cover story on cardiothoracic surgeons ("Affairs of the Heart", March 17, 1991).
In 1989, she returned to Sydney, where she resumed contributing to The Weekend Australian as a feature profile writer and senior literary critic, and began writing for ''The South China Morning Post'', ''The Globe and Mail'' in Canada, ''Harper's Bazaar'', ''Men's Style'', and other international publications.
Her first novel, The Pure Weight of the Heart was published by Orion Publishing in 1998, and went to number six on the Sydney Morning Herald's bestseller list that year.
After her brother committed suicide in 2001, she relocated to Byron Bay, the renowned countercultural haven, where she began to practice Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga and wrote ''The Eclipse''. In a November 2003 interview with ''Yoga Magazine'' UK, she said: "I wanted to explain depression as a valid emotional response rather than as a disease ... I am not ashamed of my brother, and I do not see death as tragic - deliberate ignorance and fear are tragedies, not death."
On June 19, 2004, ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' named her as a high-profile member of Mensa International.
Also in 2004, she returned to Sydney. She is now also a regular contributor to ''My Child'' magazine. Her column, Raising Bethesda, concerns life with her husband, Alexander Gambotto-Burke, a columnist for ''The Guardian'' in London, It writer, and, since 2006, an editorial consultant for Broken Ankle Books (who published ''The Eclipse'' in 2004). Their daughter Bethesda was born in December 2005.
Gambotto-Burke has also in recent years become a vocal opponent of cyber pornography, and pornography as a whole. Blog critics of Gambotto-Burke describe her as shrilly denouncing pornography, but her work on pornography has been published internationally, most recently in Men's Style, The Weekend Australian and The South China Morning Post.
A biography of Gambotto-Burke provided by Edward De Bono and currently republished on the author's website, tells of Gambotto-Burke's philosophical extremism.
Gambotto-Burke's unique powers of perception, combined with her skilled prose and, perhaps, ''instinct for the kill'', saw the coining of the phrase "To Be Gambottoed", specifically in relation to her interview subjects:

A magazine and newspaper profile writer, Gambotto's reputation has been built on her dissection of the rich and famous. Her razor eye for the architecture of pretension and her ability to record untidied dialogue, especially the way it can betray the human mind and soul, have made her an object of fear and derision. To have been "Gambottoed" is to have had a vein opened.[1]

Gambotto-Burke was commissioned to write the core love stories of artist David Bromley's upcoming film, ''I Could Be Me'' (narrated by Hugo Weaving), and her essay, "The Language of the Dead", originally an extract from ''The Eclipse'' appears in "Some Girls Do ... My Life As A Teenager", the charity anthology edited by Jacinta Tynan published by Allen & Unwin in April, 2007.
Gambotto-Burke's website indicates she is currently working on her fifth book. Her article on the emotional pitfalls of IVF ''Precious Progeny of a Petri Dish'', revolving around Nichola Bedos' ''IVF & Ever After: The Emotional Needs of Families'' appeared in The Australian on July 28, 2007.

Bibliography

★ ''Lunch of Blood'' (Random House, 1994)

★ ''An Instinct for the Kill'' (HarperCollins, 1997)

★ ''The Pure Weight of the Heart'' (Orion, 1999)

★ ''The Eclipse'' (Broken Ankle Books, 2004)

Film

★ ''I Could Be Me'', directed by artist David Bromley (2007)

Television

Gambotto-Burke has appeared on programs such as ''Beauty & The Beast'' (Channel Ten, Foxtel), ''The Midday Show'' (Channel 9), ''Meet the Press'' (SBS), and has performed cameos on Paul Fenech's SBS sitcom ''Pizza''.

External links

★ Author's official website

★ I Could Be Me

★ "The Impact of Pornography on Men" by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

★ Sunday Times Review-at-a-Glance

★ Includes criticism of "The Impact of Pornography on Men"