Kate McFadyen

There is a mesmerising scene in Carpentaria when Joseph Midnight is asked if he has seen the fugitive Will Phantom, a young local Aboriginal man who is single-handedly waging a guerrilla war against a large lead ore mining company. He eyes the questioner and astutely spots him as a ‘Southern blackfella … a real smart one, educated, acting as a guide. He got on a tie, clean white shirt and a ni ... (read more)

The first time The Engagement’s narrator, Liese Campbell, sees the family homestead owned by her lover, Alexander Colquhoun, she is struck by its imposing physical presence: ‘We turned a corner … The second storey came into view: eight upstairs windows and each chimney intricate as a small mausoleum.’ As she surveys the isolated Victorian mansion, with its English driveways and gardens, sh ... (read more)

In the afterword to The Ghost of Waterloo, Robin Adair reveals what attracts him to writing historical fiction: ‘This has been a work of what I call “friction” – facts and real people rubbing along with plausible “what-ifs”.’ The term is apt. Adair does not see historical fiction as a holistic combination of research and creativity, but as a mode in which the imagination competes wit ... (read more)