Roger McDonald


Roger McDonald is the award-winning author of several novels and a number of non-fiction works. He is also an accomplished poet and TV scriptwriter.

Life and career

The middle son of a Presbyterian minister, Hugh Fraser McDonald, 1909–81, and the Central Queensland historian, Dr Lorna McDonald, 1916-2017, his childhood was spent in the NSW country towns of Bribbaree, Temora, and Bourke, before the family moved to Sydney. He attended The Scots College and the University of Sydney.
He was briefly a teacher, ABC producer, and publisher's editor in NSW, Tasmania, and Queensland, before moving to Canberra and taking up writing full-time in 1976, in order to complete his first novel, '. McDonald has since 1980 lived near Braidwood, NSW, apart from periods in Sydney and New Zealand.
His novels are 1915, Slipstream, Rough Wallaby, Water Man, The Slap, Mr Darwin's Shooter, The Ballad of Desmond Kale, When Colts Ran, The Following and A Sea-Chase. Non-fiction: Shearers' Motel and The Tree In Changing Light.
1915 won The Age Book of the Year in 1979 and the South Australian Biennial Literature Prize in 1980. In 1982 it was made into a seven-part ABC-TV television series.
Shearers' Motel won the 1993 Banjo National Book Council Banjo Award for non-fiction. It was filmed as "Cross Turning Over" for ABC-TV in 1996
McDonald was nominated for the Miles Franklin Award in 1994 for Water Man, and in 1999 for Mr Darwin's Shooter, which in that year won the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, the Victorian Premier's Literary Award, the South Australian Premier's Awards, and the Adelaide Festival Book of the Year.
The Ballad of Desmond Kale won the Miles Franklin Award in 2006 and the Adelaide Festival Prize for Fiction in 2008. McDonald won the O. Henry Award in 2008 for "The Bullock Run". This story forms the basis of chapters 15 and 16 of When Colts Ran.
McDonald's eighth novel, When Colts Ran, 2010, was shortlisted for the 2011 Miles Franklin Award, the 2011 Victorian Premier's Prize for Fiction, and the 2011 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction.
His ninth novel, The Following, was published in 2013. A fictionalised reimagining of the life of Australian Prime Minister Ben Chifley, the story centres on the rise to prominence and legacy of Marcus Friendly. Of the book, Sydney Morning Herald reviewer Daniel Herborn wrote: The Following is just as interested in the sweep of history as in those who are caught up in, and occasionally influence, the great social changes it surveys. Its themes of destiny, sectarianism and political patronage echo across generations as the influence of Friendly rises and wanes.'
His tenth novel, A Sea-Chase'' was published in October 2017. The book follows the fortunes of young teacher Judy Compton. After fleeing a rioting classroom one dismal Friday, she gets drunk and wakes up on a boat. Overnight her life changes; she is in love with being on the water and in love with Wes Bannister. But then events at sea challenge everything she holds dearest...

Novels