Catherine McKinnon’s panoramic new novel presents a gritty view of war’s complexities

Australian soldiers firing on Japanese positions on Mount Shiburangu near Wewak, Papua New Guinea, June 1945. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Catherine McKinnon graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre, South Australia, and was a founding member of the Red Shed Theatre Company, where she worked as writer and director.

After a period in South Australian theatre, she moved to Sydney to complete a Masters in Creative Writing at UTS, where she began her first novel, The Nearly Happy Family (2008). She followed it with Storyland (2017), written while undertaking her PhD.