Roger McDonald

Roger McDonald (born 23 June 1941, in Young, New South Wales, Australia) is the author of seven novels, two works of non-fiction, and a number of commissioned novelisations, film and television tie-ins, photography book texts, and television scripts. His first two books were poetry, Citizens of Mist (1969) and Airship (1975), but since that time he has not published poetry.

The middle son of a Presbyterian minister, Hugh Fraser McDonald, and a historian, Dr Lorna McDonald, 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.

After briefly working as a teacher in country NSW, as an educational radio and television producer with the Australian Broadcasting Commission in Brisbane and Hobart, and as an editor with the University of Queensland Press in Brisbane, he moved to Canberra and took up writing full-time in 1976, in order to complete his first novel, "1915". Since 1980 he has lived near Braidwood, NSW, apart from periods in Sydney and New Zealand.

"1915" won The Age Book of the Year in 1979 and the South Australian Bennial Literature Prize Prize in 1980. In 1982 it was made into a seven-part ABC-TV television series. Scripting was by Peter Yeldham. His format, a series of interconnected stories in which the hero of one story is the villain of the next, is often used in contemporary Australian drama.

McDonald was shortlisted for the 1993 Miles Franklin Award for his book, "Shearers' Motel", an account of travelling through the outback with New Zealand shearers. However the book was withdrawn from consideration for the prize on the basis that it had been considered for other awards as non-fiction (and it subsequently won the 1993 Banjo National Book Council Banjo Award for non-fiction). McDonald was nominated for the Miles Franklin Award again 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. His novel, "The Ballad of Desmond Kale", won the Miles Franklin award in 2006 and the Adelaide Festival Prize for Fiction in 2008.

Bibliography

Novels

* "1915" (1979)
* "Slipstream" (1982)
* "Melba" (1988)
* "Rough Wallaby" (1988)
* "Flynn" (1992)
* "Water Man" (1993)
* "The Slap"(1996)
* "Mr Darwin's Shooter" (1998)
* "The Ballad of Desmond Kale" (2006)

Non-Fiction

* "Mike Willesee's Australians" (1988)
* "Reflecting Labour: Images of Myth and Origin Over 100 Years" (1991)
* "Shearers' Motel" (1992)
* "The Tree in Changing Light" (2001)

Poetry

* "Citizens of Mist" (1969)
* "Airship" (1975)

Edited

* "The First Paperback Poets Anthology" (1974)
* "Gone Bush" (1990)

Television Scripts
* "Melba" (1988)

External Links

* [http://www.randomhouse.com.au/Authors/Default.aspx?Page=Author&ID=McDonald,%20Roger Roger McDonald at Random House Australia]