Thelma Forshaw

Thelma Honora Forshaw or Thelma Korting (1 August 1923 – 8 October 1995) was an Australian short story writer and journalist. In 1967 she published a largely autobiographical collection of short stories, An Affair of Clowns, in 1967. As a journalist she worked as a freelancer and book reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Bulletin (since defunct), Meanjin, Nation, and Quadrant.

Biography Thelma Honora Forshaw was born on 1 August 1923 at Glebe Point – a suburb of Sydney. From August 1935 after her father's death, the family lived with relatives in Annandale. Forshaw was educated at St Michael's Catholic Primary School in Stanmore and St Fiacre's Primary School in Leichardt. Forshaw undertook tertiary studies at Sydney Teachers' College. She worked as a secretary and an advertising writer before marrying George Korting, an Austrian refugee, in 1948. In January 1951, using her married name, Thelma Korting, she wrote "This Veil Wore Me!" in The Argus. Subsequently, she worked as a freelancer and book reviewer for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Bulletin, Meanjin, Nation, Quadrant and other publications. These stories were notable for their realistic characters set within gritty, penetrating and humorous depictions of Australian city life in the first half of the 20th century, with a focus on outsiders, working-class lifestyles and the migrant experience.

In January 1972 Forshaw wrote a review of Germaine Greer's book, The Female Eunuch (1970) for The Age which "has stirred up a considerable controversy". According to Keith Dunstan in The Best Australian Profiles (2004), this review was "he most famous.... [Forshaw] described [The Female Eunuch] as 'the orchestrated over-the-back-fence grizzle... based on the curious fancy... we were all men, and then some fiend castrated half of us.'" Forshaw compared herself to Greer: "I'm not a middle-class lady defending her domain. My parents were working class.... I'm a housewife because I want to, I write because I want to, I love my husband who is a male, chauvinist pig and I love my two children."

Thelma Forshaw died on 8 October 1995 of a stroke in her sleep, aged 72, and was survived by her husband George and their children Helene and Grea.