Outspoken is delighted to bring Kate Holden to Maleny to speak about her Walkley Award winning book, The Winter Road.

On a lonely road at twilight, in north-western New South Wales, an 80 year-old farmer shoots an environmental officer in the back. It is 2014. The farmer, Ian Turnbull, wants to secure his family’s wealth on the richest agricultural soil in the country. The man he kills, Glen Turner, has thwarted his plans to clear endangered vegetation. He has become Turnbull’s obsession.

Kate Holden tells this story with remarkable care and attention, using it to split open the story of our place on this land. It is a profound and moving exploration of many of the assumptions we have made about what we owe the land and what it owes us.

Apart from the Walkley, Kate’s book won this year’s New South Wales Premier’s award for non-fiction as well as being short-listed for many others. Kate is a regular columnist in the Saturday Age, and came to prominence with her memoir In My Skin.

‘A gripping account of our land and ourselves,’ Tara June Winch

As our opening author, we are delighted to once again speak to Katie McMahon.

Katie’s first novel, The Mistake, was exceedingly well-received, with cover notes by such luminaries as Liane Moriarty - I absolutely loved this novel… fresh, funny and heartfelt… I didn’t want it to end. Now she returns with The Accident, revealing the inner lives of Grace, Zoe and Imogen, whose worlds are linked through shared but not always obvious connections. The Accident explores the ways in which our formative years shape our future, examining the influence of unrequited love and the healing power of friendship.