Don Watson

Watson grew up on a farm in Gippsland, took his undergraduate degree at La Trobe University and a Ph.D at Monash University and was for ten years an academic historian. He wrote three books on Australian history before turning his hand to TV and the stage. For several years he combined writing political satire for the actor Max Gillies with political speeches for the former Premier of Victoria, John Cain.

In 1992 he became Prime Minister Paul Keating's speech-writer and adviser and his best-selling account of those years, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart': Paul Keating Prime Minister, won both the The Age Book of the Year and non-fiction Prizes, the Brisbane Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Lite

If you like author Don Watson here is the list of authors you may also like

Buy books on Amazon

Total similar authors (29)

Nick Bryant

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR
Buy books on Amazon
Marian Wilkinson

Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning Australian journalist with a career that has spanned radio, television and print.

She has covered politics, national security, refugee issues, and climate change as well as serving as a foreign correspondent in Washington, DC for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was a deputy editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, executive producer of the ABC's Four Corners program, and a senior reporter with Four Corners.

As environment editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, she reported on the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice for a joint Four Corners-Sydney Morning Herald production that won a Walkley Award for journalism and the Australian Museum's Eureka prize for environmental journalism. She also covered the
Buy books on Amazon
Dennis Glover

Dennis Glover was educated at Monash and Cambridge universities and he has made a career as one of Australia's leading speechwriters and political commentators. His first novel, The Last Man in Europe, was published around the world in multiple editions and was nominated for several literary prizes, including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. His second novel, Factory 19, was published in 2020, and his newest novel, Thaw, is forthcoming.
Buy books on Amazon
Larry McMurtry

Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the scre
Buy books on Amazon
Charles Frazier

Charles Frazier is an award-winning author of American historical fiction. His literary corpus, to date, is comprised of three New York Times best selling novels: Nightwoods (2011), Thirteen Moons (2006), and Cold Mountain (1997) - winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

Librarian Note: There are multiple authors in the goodreads database with this name. more info here.
Buy books on Amazon
Tim Winton

Tim Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the small country town of Albany.

While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.

In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles
Buy books on Amazon
John Lyons

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

Sir John Lyons, LittD, FBA, is an English linguist, working on semantics. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lyo...]
Buy books on Amazon
J.L. Carr

Carr was born in Thirsk Junction, Carlton Miniott, Yorkshire, into a Wesleyan Methodist family. His father Joseph, the eleventh son of a farmer, went to work for the railways, eventually becoming a station master for the North Eastern Railway. Carr was given the same Christian name as his father and the middle name Lloyd, after David Lloyd George, the Liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer. He adopted the names Jim and James in adulthood. His brother Raymond, who was also a station master, called him Lloyd.

Carr's early life was shaped by failure. He attended the village school at Carlton Miniott. He failed the scholarship exam, which denied him a grammar school education, and on finishing his school career he also failed to gain admission to t
Buy books on Amazon
Marian Wilkinson

Marian Wilkinson is a multi-award-winning Australian journalist with a career that has spanned radio, television and print.

She has covered politics, national security, refugee issues, and climate change as well as serving as a foreign correspondent in Washington, DC for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She was a deputy editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, executive producer of the ABC's Four Corners program, and a senior reporter with Four Corners.

As environment editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, she reported on the rapid melt of Arctic sea ice for a joint Four Corners-Sydney Morning Herald production that won a Walkley Award for journalism and the Australian Museum's Eureka prize for environmental journalism. She also covered the
Buy books on Amazon
Ilan Pappé

Ilan Pappé is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the UK, director of the university's European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies, and political activist. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984–2007) and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies in Haifa (2000–2008).

Pappé is one of Israel's "New Historians" who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel's creation in 1948, and the corresponding expulsion or flight of 700,000 Palestinians in the same y
Buy books on Amazon
Nick Bryant

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR
Buy books on Amazon
Michelle de Kretser

Michelle de Kretser is an Australian novelist who was born in Sri Lanka but moved to Australia when she was 14.

She was educated in Melbourne and Paris, and published her first novel, 'The Rose Grower' in 1999. Her second novel, published in 2003, 'The Hamilton Case' was winner of the Tasmania Pacific Prize, the Encore Award (UK) and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Southeast Asia and Pacific). 'The Lost Dog' was published in 2007. It was one of 13 books on the long list for the 2008 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. From 1989 to 1992 she was a founding editor of the Australian Women's Book Review.
Buy books on Amazon
Kate Grenville

Kate Grenville is one of Australia's best-known authors. She's published eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process. Her best-known works are the international best-seller The Secret River, The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant and Lilian's Story (details about all Kate Grenville's books are elsewhere on this site). Her novels have won many awards both in Australia and the UK, several have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages.

Buy books on Amazon
Helen Garner

Helen Garner was born in Geelong in 1942. She has published many works of fiction including Monkey Grip, Cosmo Cosmolino and The Children's Bach. Her fiction has won numerous awards. She is also one of Australia's most respected non-fiction writers, and received a Walkley Award for journalism in 1993.

Her most recent books are The First Stone, True Stories, My Hard Heart, The Feel of Stone and Joe Cinque's Consolation. In 2006 she won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. She lives in Melbourne.

Praise for Helen Garner's work

'Helen Garner is an extraordinarily good writer. There is not a paragraph, let alone a page, where she does not compel your attention.'
Bulletin

'She is outstanding in the accuracy of her observations, the intensity of passio
Buy books on Amazon
Sophie Cunningham

Sophie Cunningham is the author of six books including City of Trees: Essays on Life, Death and the Need for a Forest (Text, 2020). She is also the editor of the collection Fire, Flood, Plague: Australian writers respond to 2020 (Vintage, 2020).
Buy books on Amazon
Dennis Glover

Dennis Glover was educated at Monash and Cambridge universities and he has made a career as one of Australia's leading speechwriters and political commentators. His first novel, The Last Man in Europe, was published around the world in multiple editions and was nominated for several literary prizes, including the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. His second novel, Factory 19, was published in 2020, and his newest novel, Thaw, is forthcoming.
Buy books on Amazon
Solvej Balle

Solvej Balle er en særegen stemme i dansk litteratur. Hun var del af en gruppe hovedsageligt kvindelige forfattere, som debuterede eller slog deres navne fast i begyndelsen af 90’erne. Siden Balle debuterede i 1986 med romanen ”Lyrefugl”, har hun udgivet ganske få værker, så det var en overraskelse, da hun i 2020 annoncerede det ambitiøse og filosofiske syvbindsværk ”Om udregning af rumfang”, som hun i 2022 modtog Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris for, for de første fire bind
Buy books on Amazon
Richard Fidler

Richard Fidler is one of ABC's (Australian Broadcasting Commission) most popular presenters, best known for his hour-long interview program, Conversations with Richard Fidler. The program is ABC Radio's most popular podcast, downloaded more than 1.5 million times per month. It features local and international guests from all walks of life, engaging in in-depth interviews.

He first came to prominence in the 1980s as a member of the Doug Anthony All Stars (DAAS), an Australian musical comedy group also comprising Tim Ferguson and Paul McDermott. The group disbanded in 1994.

Richard began his broadcast career on TV, and presented shows including: Race Around the World; Aftershock; Mouthing Off, and Vulture.

In 2011 Fidler was awarded a Churchill
Buy books on Amazon
Gough Whitlam

AKA Edward Gough Whitlam
Buy books on Amazon
Alan Kohler

Alan Kohler is finance presenter on ABC News and a columnist for The New Daily. A former editor of The Age and The Australian Financial Review, he founded the Eureka Report and has written for The Australian, AFR, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. His books include It's Your Money.
Buy books on Amazon
Madeleine Gray

Madeleine Gray is a writer and critic from Sydney. Her first novel, Green Dot, was an international bestseller. Her second novel is Chosen Family. She has an MSt in English from the University of Oxford and a PhD in feminist literary theory from the University of Manchester.
Buy books on Amazon
Rick Morton

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

This is Rick^Morton, where ^=space. (default profile)

About the Author:
Rick Morton is Vice President of Engagement for Lifeline Children's Services, one of the nation's leading Christian adoption and orphan care ministries. He is married to Denise and they are the parents of 3 children who joined their family through adoption from Ukraine.

Together, the Mortons were a part of co-founding Promise 139, an international orphan-hosting ministry based in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In addition to local church ministry, Morton has spent more than a decade as a college and seminary professor.

Rick has served on the faculties on New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminar
Buy books on Amazon
Robbie Arnott

Robbie Arnott was born in Launceston in 1989. His writing has appeared in Island, the Lifted Brow, Kill Your Darlings and the 2017 anthology Seven Stories. He won the 2015 Tasmanian Young Writers’ Fellowship and the 2014 Scribe Nonfiction Prize for Young Writers. Robbie lives in Hobart and is an advertising copywriter.
Buy books on Amazon
Melanie Cheng

I am a writer, mum and general practitioner from Melbourne, Australia. I have been published in print and online. My writing has appeared in The Age, Meanjin, Overland, Griffith REVIEW, Sleepers Almanac, The Bridport Prize Anthology, Lascaux Review, Visible Ink, Peril, The Victorian Writer and Seizure. My short story collection, Australia Day, won the 2016 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Unpublished Manuscript and went on to win the 2018 Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction. My latest book is the novel, Room for a Stranger. If Saul Bellow is right and “a writer is a reader moved to emulation” then I am moved by authors like Richard Yates, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami and Christos Tsiolkas.
Buy books on Amazon
Lech Blaine

Lech Blaine is a writer from Toowoomba, Queensland. His work appears in The Best Australian Essays, Meanjin, The Guardian and The Monthly, among others. His work has been nominated for several prizes and he was an inaugural recipient of a Griffith Review Queensland Writers Fellowship.
Buy books on Amazon
Dominic Amerena

Dominic Amerena is a writer from Melbourne. His work has appeared in places like Australian Book Review, Overland, the Australian, the Lifted Brow, the Age, Meanjin and Kill Your Darlings.
His work has been recognised in a number of awards, most recently the 2017 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize.
Buy books on Amazon
Gough Whitlam

AKA Edward Gough Whitlam
Buy books on Amazon
Steve Waugh

Steve Waugh, the embodiment of true Australian grit, evolved from a raw 20-year-old talented batsman into a cricketer who eliminated risk from his game. He led Australia in 15 of their world-record 16 consecutive Test wins and to the 1999 World Cup title, playing 168 Tests and collecting 10,927 runs on the way.

He retired in January 2004 as the most successful captain in the history of Test cricket, with 41 wins in 57 Tests.

In his time as captain, Waugh fashioned Australia into arguably the greatest team of all time. A batsman who mixed mental courage with natural ability, it was Waugh’s contribution as a captain that has seen him become a legend of the game.

In many ways, Waugh captained as he played: unyielding, aggressive, determined and
Buy books on Amazon
Joseph Furphy

Born to a farming family in colonial Victoria, Joseph Furphy spent his working life as a grazier, engine driver, and bullock-team leader. An avid reader and writer (he memorised passages of Shakespeare from the age of seven, as it was the only book in the house other than the Bible), Furphy composed short stories which were intermittently published in newspapers such as The Bulletin. Much of his work was published under the pseudonym "Tom Collins", and he is still sometimes misidentified as such today.

In 1897, Furphy completed his manuscript for a novel, "Such is Life", which was sent to the Bulletin's editor, A.G. Stephens. Stephens recommended changes and cuts, including two entire chapters. The novel was published in 1903 and, although i
Buy books on Amazon