Member Spotlight: Kate Grenville

5.05.21

Our May Member Spotlight features Kate Grenville, who was recently announced as the winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the 2021 NSW Premier's Literary Awards for her historical fiction novel, A Room Made of Leaves. 

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's most widely celebrated writers. Her international bestseller The Secret River was awarded local and overseas literary prizes, has been adapted for the stage and screen, and is now a much-loved Australian classic. She has also written several other award-winning novels, books about the writing process, and non-fiction works. In 2017 Grenville was awarded the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.

What inspired you to begin a career in writing?

I’ve always loved the way writing lets you think your way into some knotty puzzle about the way human being behave. It lets you be right up close to the puzzle, and at the same time at a distance - thinking about the exact word, the exact metaphor, that will take you further into understanding, while also ranging around in a free-form,  intuitive way. I still remember the pleasure of that wonderful mix of thinking and imagining and inventing from Mrs Linney’s composition classes at primary school – the satisfaction of hitting on the right words in the right order was like no other pleasure.   

What does winning the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction mean to you?

It’s a huge honour.  There are so many good novels being published, I feel sorry for the judges who have to pick one out of the line-up – that makes it a big thing to be chosen.  The writer’s life is solitary and uncertain and full of self-doubt (or at least this writer’s life is). The public acknowledgement of being awarded a prize is hugely important – it gives a sense that what you’re doing is worthwhile after all.  

What do you know now that you wish you’d known at the beginning of your writing journey?

Writing has never come easily to me – I do a ridiculous number of drafts before I’m happy.  When I first started writing, I wondered whether that was a sign that writing wasn’t what I should be doing.  Surely, if it was my future, it would come more easily? Now, seventeen books down the track, I know that every book is difficult, and each one is difficult in its own way.  The difference now is that I know the difficulty is just part of the process.  It’s not a reason to give up, just a reason to do another draft.

Read more about Kate Greville at https://kategrenville.com.au/