Maggie MacKellar Maggie MacKellar i(A85838 works by)
Born: Established: 1973 ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Maggie MacKellar is a writer, shearers’ cook and occasional farm hand. She lives on the east coast of Tasmania.

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Graft : Motherhood, Family and a Year on the Land Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2023 25548961 2023 single work autobiography

'In my mind I walk over the land. I run my hands through the grass as if it were the hair on my head. I dig my fingers into the dirt as if the soil were the crust of my skin. Combining pages of her diary, kept through lambing seasons on a wool Merino farm on the east coast of Tasmania, with observations on the world around her, MacKellar writes a stunning thanksgiving on place, mothers, and the ways we cannot escape the elemental laws of nature. Her love for and knowledge of the land on which she lives, the lambs she cares for, and the birds she adores - illustrated in stunning line drawings through the book - are writ large.

'You will want to leap into the pages and walk beside Maggie as she saves ewes, lambs, tends to her beloved horses and dogs, and considers the challenges and joys of motherhood and farming.

'Susan Duncan on When It Rains- 'An unforgettable story of love and courage that inspires even as it breaks your heart.'' (Publication summary)

2024 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Non-Fiction
2024 highly commended National Biography Award
2024 longlisted The Stella Prize
2023 longlisted Mark and Evette Moran Nib Award for Literature
y separately published work icon When It Rains : A Memoir North Sydney : Random House Australia , 2010 Z1727163 2010 single work autobiography

'When Maggie's vibrant young husband, father to a five-year-old daughter and an unborn son, dies tragically, Maggie is left widowed and due to give birth three months later to their second child. Then her beloved mother, backbone of the family, mother to three children, grandmother to two, dies suddenly of aggressive cancer. In two short years, Maggie's life has shattered. After a year, she gives up trying to juggle single motherhood and the demands of an academic career and returns with her children to the family farm in central western New South Wales to take stock and catch a breath. The farm becomes a redemptive, healing place for Maggie and her children as they battle the heat and drought that only the Australian landscape can offer. She throws herself into the horses, sheep, ducks and chickens and slowly, finally, realises she has found a new shape for herself. Written by a brilliant new talent, When It Rains is a meditation on grief and the vagaries of the human condition, and a stunning memoir about piecing back together a life, and moving forward, one step at a time.' (Publisher's description)

2009 winner Australian Centre Literary Awards Peter Blazey Fellowship as her work in progress, Anatomy of a Grief.
2011 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards Best Non-Fiction Book
2011 shortlisted The Age Book of the Year Award Non-Fiction Prize
Last amended 15 Nov 2021 11:41:51
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