Former Riverine Grazier journalist Lucy Hayes has published her debut novel, The Country Wedding. The story is set in Hay, Booligal and the surrounding Riverina during a severe drought. It follows artist Tess Matheson, whose past resurfaces on the eve of her first solo exhibition, the same day her ex-boyfriend returns home to marry. The novel uses five character viewpoints. Hayes began writing it during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her professional writing career started at The Grazier 30 years ago. The book is available via Amazon.
Author Sophie Green has published her eighth novel, The Frock Shop, which is set in Mosman, where she grew up and now lives again. Green works full-time as a publisher and is finishing another book due out early next year. She also runs Sunburnt Country Music, a platform that interviews country music artists and won her a 2024 media award. Green says she writes on the ferry and late at night, and encourages people to find the form of expression that makes them feel free.
The third instalment of a column looking at books adapted for the screen has been published. It highlights Margo's Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe, a laugh-out-loud novel that has inspired an upcoming screen adaptation.
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Tim Winton wrote Cloudstreet while living overseas, not expecting its success. Published in 1991 during a severe recession, it was issued as a paperback and quickly became a hit. Thirty-five years on, the novel has been adapted for radio, theatre, opera and television and has never gone out of print. It placed first in Radio National's Top 100 Australian Books, with three other Winton novels also on the list. Winton says the book draws on the family stories he heard as a child and on his grandmother's life.
Bestselling author Fiona McIntosh will appear at Shellharbour City Library on October 24 for an event tied to her new novel, The Art Lovers. The book, set in wartime Malta, follows a barkeeper's daughter and a British pilot who meet after his plane crashes into her world. McIntosh said the idea grew from a visit to Valletta and a Caravaggio painting, and that she spent more than three years on research. The event runs from 6pm to 8pm and includes a signing and a display of World War II pieces from Shellharbour City Museum. Tickets cost $10.
Local author Carmel Taylor recently visited the U3A Brimbank Book Group to discuss her novel The Shorthand Sleuth – Transcribing Death. The historical fiction follows an entrepreneurial young woman whose shorthand skill leads her into forensic phonography. The story is set in post-war Melbourne during the 1950s. Taylor said she was thrilled the group had invited her, and that members asked questions showing they understood her intent. Taylor also wrote a sequel and a history of shorthand in Australia.
A debut novel inspired by a segregated shantytown in far north Queensland has won the top prize at the Queensland literary awards. The Pearl of Tagai Town by Lenora Thaker won the $30,000 Queensland premier’s award for a work of state significance. The novel, praised for its vivid sense of place, tells the story of a community that existed from the late 1800s until the late 1950s. The winners were announced at a ceremony on Thursday night at Brisbane Powerhouse, as part of Brisbane writers festival.
