From the heart

The old adage that the bush gives you too much time to think rings true for fourth-generation grazier and esteemed pastoral-history novelist Nicole Alexander. Whenever she’s out at Murki, her family property, she finds herself mentally developing story concepts and shaping the spellbinding sagas that have become her signature since her first book, The Bark Cutters, was released in 2010.

“I have always used cinematic visualisation when writing,” she says. “I believe a strong sense of place is needed to cement a reader in the author’s world. I have no doubt the attention to detail born of the managerial aspect of my rural life helps me write authentically both about the bush that I love and the emotional attachment that many of us feel towards our extraordinary landscape.”