I am delighted to be joining so many brilliant writers at Sorrento Writers Festival 2026.
These events sold out very quickly so my apologies for any disappointments – but if you hurry there’s still one event available – see below!
Or the entire program is here at Sorrento Writers Festival.
Sorrento Writers Festival
Heather Rose at Sorrento Writers Festival
This weekend I’ll be at Newcastle Writers Festival!
Saturday March 28th 10am I’ll be talking about The Writing Life with my two wonderful fellow writers – Hannah Kent (Always Home, Always Homesick, Burial Rights etc) and J.P.Pomare (The Gambler, Seventeen Years Later etc) guided by the one and only Kate Evans from ABC Arts. Tickets here.
3pm Saturday March 28th I’ll be interviewing the extraordinary Stephanie Alexander AO celebrating the launch of the 30 anniversary edition of legendary Australian kitchen bible The Cook’s Companion. I’ve interviewed Julia Gillard, Elizabeth Gilbert and many other writers, but this one feels very special. Tickets here.
Sunday 5pm March 29th I’ll be in conversation with the wonderful Jacinta Parson talking about A Great Act of Love. Tickets here.
Please come along. there are so many brilliant writers across the entire Newcastle Writers program. Link here to all ticketed events.
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Events and conversations at Newcastle Writers Festival 2026 
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Caroline examines a stolen map. And there she finds it, at the edge of the Western Hemisphere, a black mark at the 30th latitude smaller than a flea: Norfolk Island. Her Aunt thinks she’s a fool for wanting to follow her father to the other side of the world. He is no longer the man who taught Caroline about philosophy, apothecary and dreamt of returning to the France of his childhood. He is a convicted murderer, mad, deported, condemned. But, when she understands that Caroline is determined, her Aunt has one piece of advice: she must leave her past behind and invent a new story.
In 1839, Caroline lands in Van Dieman’s Land, a young widow of means with a boy in her care. In this insular colony of exiles and opportunists, no-one talks too much about their past. Caroline leases a run-down cottage and abandoned vineyard and, on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty, she embarks on a fearless enterprise to reclaim her father, create champagne, and rewrite her family’s legacy.
Travelling from Paris to Edinburgh, London, New York and to Tasmania, The Great Act of Love is an epic story of hope and self-invention. Now published by John Murray publishers with the wonderful team lead by Jocasta Hamilton.
‘A captivating story of love and adventure, thrumming with secrets’ Lucy Steeds, author of The Artist
‘Moves elegantly back and forwards in time, and across the world from Paris and London to
the Antipodes . . . Beautifully written’ Sunday Times
‘A compelling tale . . . blends historical fiction with high adventure and romance’ Guardian
‘Like a fine vintage of champagne, this novel is complex, layered, and delicious’ Kate MacIntosh, author of The Champagne Letters
A young woman with a mysterious past searches for her father—who has committed an unspeakable crime—in an exquisitely lush historical novel set among the champagne vines of 19th-century Australia.
Van Diemen’s Land, 1839. A young woman of means arrives in Hobart, Australia, with a boy in her care. Leasing an old cottage next to an abandoned vineyard, Caroline Douglas must navigate an insular colony of exiles and opportunists and invent a new life on this island of extreme seasons and wild beauty. But Caroline is carrying a secret of such magnitude that it has led her to cross the world. It will take all she is made of to bring it into the light.
A Great Act of Love is a spellbinding story that soars from the French Revolution to London and New York on an epic voyage to Tasmania. Here is a story of a family with champagne in their blood, and an enterprising woman determined to rewrite their legacy. The lives of Caroline, her father, and the residents of the island will collide in devastating and profound ways.
Now published by Summit/ Simon & Schuster lead by Judy Clain and the wonderful team at Summit New York.
Immensely beautiful with unforgettable characters, this heartrending family saga chronicles a father and daughter’s journey back to each other and captures the enduring power of familial love.
‘Sumptuous…This is a treat for historical fiction fans.’ Publishers Weekly
Thank you to all the wonderful interviewers who shared the launch of A Great Act of Love with me through October. We began with Mel Kembrey in Hobart for the offical Tasmanian launch, then moved to Kate Evans in Sydney and Brisbane, Michaela Kalowski in Sydney, Jason Steger at Queenscliff, Sarah MacDonald at Avalon, Caro Baum at Thirroul, Helen Waugh in Sydney, Tracee Hutchison at Montalto on the Mornington Peninsula, Toni Jordan in Melbourne, Shelley Davidow in Noosa, Karen Viggers in Canberra, Stephen Lang in Maleny and Hannah Kent in the Adelaide Hills and Cassie McCullough and Kate Evans in Canberra.
Thank you to all the beautiful booksellers, hosts and staff at inner city venues, delightful wineries, beautiful restaurants and awesome libraries from the Adelaide Hills, to Maleny and Noosa, to events at Sorrento, Queenscliffe and Canberra Writers Festivals.
Thank you to all the readers and fellow writers who shared their love along the way.
And to Allen & Unwin, publishers extraordinaire, for all the planning, logistics and care.
A Great Act of Love Events
Murder, theft, reinvention and redemption – a novel of family, legacy and love.
Listen to Heather talk about ‘A Great Act of Love’ on Radio National with Claire Nichols.
Read Helen Elliott’s review in The Age.
Photograph by Sarah Enticknap.
Just when you thought you’d escaped a possible future, it’s back – in this beautiful new design.
Family, intrigue, politics, globalism and the rare beauty of a remote home …
Described as ‘more a hand grenade than a book’ by Rohan Wilson in The Australian – here is Tasmania on the world stage … while Tasmanians do their best to do what they are good at. Remaining loyal to the islands we love. First published in 2019.
Winner of the 2020 <strong>Fiction Book of The Year</strong> in the Australian Book Industry Awards.
Shortlisted for the <strong>Independent Booksellers Book of the Year</strong>
One of Australia’s <strong>Top 10 Bestselling Novels</strong> of 2020
Nominated for one of the best books of the 21st century – https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/countdown/top100books
2025 edition of White Heart just re-published and re-released
Newly released and in bookstores now! My first novel White Heart … published in 1999 and out of print for many years – but now in this beautiful edition.
A novel of the magic of childhood and the poignant transition to adulthood for Farley Willow and her brother Ambrose. While Ambrose searches for evidence of an ancient creature, Farley journeys into native American ritual. A novel about the fragile landscape of the human heart with the ever-present beauty of Tasmania from sea-shore to the south-west wilderness.
Thank you to all the team @allenandunwin and @thenaheragency for the opportunity to see this book back in print … and with the beautiful design by @sandyc_gogo and exquisite art by @cyan_o_type
The River Wife is now published in this beautifully designed new edition. The River Wife is the story of a woman who is a fish by night and a woman by day, but when love comes to the river, everything changes. This is the second of my backlist to be published afresh by Allen & Unwin and featuring the cyan0type brilliance of British artist Will Creech. (White Heart – my first novel – will re published again in June.)
The River Wife was originally published in 2009 – my third novel. The Age said about it – ‘A celebration of the beauty of nature and the enduring power of story.’ Readings said ‘The River Wife holds stories within stories and they are all woven together with a compassionate and unique hand.’ The Canberra Times said ‘A cool and luscious fable of love …elegiac and profound.’ It’s that rare thing in Australian literature – magical realism.
It won the International Varuna Eleanor Dark Fellowship as an unfinished manuscript which took me on a wonderful writing adventure to Scotland for a month back in 2007 as part of the UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature program. The River Wife has accumulated a particularly passionate group of readers over the years – and it’s always very special to meet them.
If you haven’t yet read this one, I invite you to immerse yourself in a story of love, water and belonging.
Twenty years after being published by UQP, and continuously in print, Allen & Unwin has acquired the award-winning The Butterfly Man. A crime fiction novel like no other.
Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here is currently shortlisted for the Premier’s Prize for Non-fiction in the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards. It is always very special to be recognised for your work in your home territory. Tasmania has been the wellspring of all my writing. The prizes are biennial – so this is a late and lovely surprise for the memoir! And it’s a great honour to be listed alongside esteemed historian Lucy Frost, beloved author Maggie MacKellar and editor and academic Matthew Lamb. Read extracts of each work on the links in the judges’ comments below. Thank you to all the judges. My fellow shortlisted authors are:
- Convict Orphans by Lucy Frost (Allen & Unwin, 2023)
- Frank Moorhouse: Strange Paths by Matthew Lamb (Penguin Random House, 2023)
- Graft by Maggie MacKellar (Penguin Random House, 2023)
Judges’ comments
We have been thrilled by the quality, diversity and interest of the books nominated for the 2025 Tasmanian Literary Awards. After selecting a fascinating longlist, we were faced with some difficult decisions in narrowing this down to only four books. In the end, we were in close agreement: those we have chosen resonated most strongly with the committee for many different reasons, but we would like to congratulate all the authors whose magnificent works we have carefully considered and so greatly enjoyed.
Lucy Frost’s Convict Orphans gives a fascinating insight into an underexplored dimension of colonial Australian history: the many children who found themselves displaced and disenfranchised by the convict system and the extraordinary challenges they faced. Beautifully and sensitively written, the book is a testament to Frost’s expertise and rigour as a historian, illuminating stories of deprivation and brutality, but also of resilience, hope, kindness and survival.
We have relished reading Matthew Lamb’s Frank Moorhouse: Strange Paths. Not only does this first book in a planned two-volume biography take on one of Australia’s most vivid literary figures with impressive detail and insight – it works as a social and cultural history of the author’s context, complete with the challenges he posed to the sexual mores and conventions of his times. Crucial to this is its broader exploration of Australia’s literary development, which makes this book (even!) bigger than the sum of its parts.
Maggie Mackellar’s Graft is a beautifully written memoir that takes us through a year of drought on a merino wool farm and the events and challenges that had led her there. Her intimate love for and knowledge of this piece of land on lutruwita/Tasmania’s East Coast and the fragile and resilient life it sustains is evocatively, poetically and generously shared with the reader. With elements of the best of nature writing, memoir and as a meditation on parenthood, this is a stunning book.
What a life! In Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here, Heather Rose shares her unconventional life in a lightly compelling prose style that captures the book’s complex themes with deceptive simplicity. From devastating tragedy and grief to extreme pursuits of spirituality, self-discovery and so much in between, Rose conveys her remarkable experiences in a way that allows them to be felt and understood. The undercurrent of loss and sadness runs seamlessly in parallel with joy, humour and love.
2:30pm – 3:30pm | Nothing bad ever happens here: Heather Rose in conversation with Danielle Wood
I’m delighted to be in conversation with my dear friend and fellow author Danielle Wood reflecting on The Museum of Modern Love and Nothing Bad Ever Happens Here. Click here to book a free ticket.
Danielle is the author of the Vogel Prize-winning novel The Alphabet of Light and Dark, Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls, Housewife Superstar: the very best of Marjorie Bligh and Mothers Grimm. As ‘Minnie Darke’, she’s written the novels Star-crossed, The Lost Love Song, and With Love from Wish & Co, and the novellas Wild Apples and The Yellow Wood. Danielle is also the co-editor of two anthologies of Tasmanian writing, Deep South: Stories from Tasmania and Island Story: Tasmania in Object and Text. And together Danielle and Heather Rose are ‘Angelica Banks’, author of the Tuesday McGillycuddy books for children. Danielle lives in Hobart and teaches writing at the University of Tasmania.
Fullers Bookshop will be the bookseller for this event.
Free coffee, tea and biscuits available before and after each session.
Tickets are free but bookings are essential. Reserve your spot here.
Also on this special day…
1pm – 2pm | Exploring hope and trust in fiction
Award-winning author Amanda Lohrey sits down with poet and editor Michelle Cahill to talk about hope and trust in literature. Click here to book a free ticket.
Michelle Cahill (she/they)
Michelle is a poet and novelist of Indian heritage. She is the 2023 Hedberg Writer-in-Residence. Her short story collection Letter to Pessoa was awarded the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing. Her novel Daisy & Woolf was longlisted in the ALS Gold Medal and the Voss Literary Prize. She has been shortlisted in the ABR Elizabeth Jolley Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize and received the KWS Hilary Mantel International Short Story Prize. Cahill is the artistic director of Mascara.
Amanda Lohrey (she/her)
Amanda lives in Tasmania and writes fiction. In November 2012 she received the 2012 Patrick White Award for literature. Her 2020 novel The Labyrinth won the 2021 Miles Franklin Award, the Voss Award for fiction, the Prime Minister’s Award for fiction and the Tasmanian Literary Award for fiction. Her most recent publication is a novel, The Conversion (2023). In 2022, Melbourne University Press published a critical study of her work, Lohrey, by Dr Julieanne Lamond of the Australian National University.
