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Catherine McKinnon Catherine McKinnon i(A115300 works by) (a.k.a. Cath McKinnon)
Born: Established: 1958 Adelaide, South Australia, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Cath McKinnon graduated from Flinders University Drama Centre, South Australia, and was a founding member of the Red Shed Theatre Company, working as writer and director. Among her plays are Immaculate Deceptions, A Rose by Any Other Name, The Road to Mindanao, Station Z, Hurt, and As I Lay Dreaming, a body of work spanning the period from the 1980s into the 2010s. She has also directed for the State Theatre Company of South Australia. 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.

McKinnon published her first novel, The Nearly Happy Family, in 2008, and followed it in 2017 with the novel Storyland, written while she was undertaking a PhD at Flinders University.

McKinnon's work has been nominated for AWGIE Awards, the Jill Blewett's Playwright's Award, and Indie Awards.

Most Referenced Works

Affiliation Notes

  • South Australian

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Storyland Sydney : HarperCollins Australia , 2017 10535941 2017 single work novel historical fiction fantasy

'An ambitious, remarkable and moving novel about who we are: our past, present and future, and our connection to this land.

'In 1796, a young cabin boy, Will Martin, goes on a voyage of discovery in the Tom Thumb with Matthew Flinders and Mr Bass: two men and a boy in a tiny boat on an exploratory journey south from Sydney Cove to the Illawarra, full of hope and dreams, daring and fearfulness.

'Set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and spanning four centuries, Storyland is a unique and compelling novel of people and place - which tells in essence the story of Australia. Told in an unfurling narrative of interlinking stories, in a style reminiscent of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, McKinnon weaves together the stories of Will Martin together with the stories of four others: a desperate ex-convict, Hawker, who commits an act of terrible brutality; Lola, who in 1900 runs a dairy farm on the Illawarra with her brother and sister, when they come under suspicion for a crime they did not commit; Bel, a young girl who goes on a rafting adventure with her friends in 1998 and is unexpectedly caught up in violent events; and in 2033, Nada, who sees her world start to crumble apart. Intriguingly, all these characters are all connected - not only through the same land and water they inhabit over the decades, but also by tendrils of blood, history, memory and property...

'Compelling, thrilling and ambitious, Storyland is our story, the story of Australia. 'The land is a book waiting to be read' as one of the characters says - and this novel tells us an unforgettable and unputdownable story of our history, our present and our future.' (Publication summary)

2018 shortlisted Barbara Jefferis Award
2018 shortlisted Voss Literary Prize
2018 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
2018 longlisted Indie Awards Debut Fiction
y separately published work icon Hurt 2012 2016 11414905 2012 single work drama

'Three people— Mel, Dominic, and Alex—await news about an injured child. In trying to come to terms with the potential loss of a young life are they able to reveal previously hidden truths? Or do they lay blame on each other, pushing already fractious relationships into darker territory?'

*Source: Old 505 Theatre (https://old505theatre.com/shows/hurt-1448252119.html). (Sighted: 26/06/2017)

2017 nominated AWGIE Awards Stage Award
Last amended 1 Mar 2018 16:32:16
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