Welcome!
I acknowledge the Cadigal and Wangal clans of the Eora nation, on whose land I live and work. This unceded land always was and always will be Aboriginal.
To join my Substack, Being Alone with Myself, click here
To purchase copies of my books, and those of Charmian Clift, please go to the Book Shop on this website.
Keep well, and keep reading.
Nadia
"Nadia Wheatley, long admired for versatility and skill is also a seriously serious writer. Bold, too." - Ruth Park
Over a career of 40 years, Nadia Wheatley has published a number of award-winning works of fiction, history and biography, including The Life and Myth of Charmian Clift (described by critic Peter Craven as ‘One of the greatest Australian biographies’). Her most recent books are the memoir Her Mother’s Daughter (Text Publishing 2018), winner of the 2019 Waverley Nib Award, and Radicals — Remembering the Sixties, co-written with Meredith Burgmann (NewSouth, 2021). In her role as Charmian Clift’s biographer, Nadia has edited Sneaky Little Revolutions — The Selected Essays of Charmian Clift (NewSouth 2022) and The End of the Morning (NewSouth 2024).
In 2014 the University of Sydney awarded Nadia an Honorary Doctorate of Letters, in recognition of 'her exceptional creative achievements in the field of literature, her work as an historian and her contribution to our understanding of Indigenous issues, cultural diversity, equity and social justice and the environment through story'.
FORTHCOMING 2026!
1 APRIL 2026: Strange New World: Belsen’s First Year of Freedom.
Published by Monash University Publications.
Most post-Liberation histories of Belsen focus on the Emergency Relief period, which ended in late May 1945. Strange New World takes the reader into the survivors’ first twelve months of freedom, spent in a politically charged and volatile atmosphere of a Displaced Persons Camp situated a couple of kilometres from the site of the former concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. Despite the alienating circumstances, survivors asserted their agency and independence. This is a story of new life and new hope, of relationships formed and babies born. And as the conflicts of the past are currently re-enacted in eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even in the author’s home town of Sydney, Strange New World: Belsen’s First Year of Freedom provides a prequel to today’s headlines.
The author will be speaking about her new book at the Manly Writers’ Festival (March), and the Sorrento Writers Festival (April).
3 to 12 JUNE 2026: Charmian Clift’s Kalymnos: A Workshop for Readers and Writers
Operated by Limelight Arts Travel.
Bookings are open for this eight-day workshop held on the Greek island of Kalymnos and led by Nadia Wheatley. You can find the itinerary and booking information at: https://www.limelight-arts-travel.com.au/charmian-clifts-kalymnos-june-2026
This is your chance to discover the island where Charmian Clift made her first home in Greece, and where she found her unique literary voice, expressed in her timeless travel memoir Mermaid Singing. Kalymnos also provided the author with the setting for her novel Honour’s Mimic.
As you discover the island and its unique culture of matriarchs and sponge-divers, you will also discover your own writing voice through on-site journaling and in twice-daily workshop sessions that will enable you to produce short passages of creative writing that express what you have seen and experienced on the island.
There is no need to have published anything previously in order to take part. This is as much a workshop for readers as it is for writers.
For information or to secure your place on the tour, email info@limelight-arts-travel.com.au
RECENT PRINT PUBLICATIONS
‘Liars, Inventers, Embroiderers — Rewriting the Life and Myth of Charmian Clift’, AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW, December 2025:
My recent discovery of new information about the back story of Charmian Clift’s parents (whom she described as ‘liars, inventers and embroiderers) caused me to revise my understanding of Clift’s childhood, and her unfinished autobiographical novella The End of the Morning. SPOILER ALERT: Described as an ‘audacious swindler’, 24-year-old Amy Currie (who later became Charmian Clift’s mother) spent nine months in Long Bay Gaol.
This article is also available as an ABR Podcast.
‘Writing Historical Fiction: A Banner Bold’. MAGPIES, November 2025:
My historical novel A Banner Bold (for a primary-age audience) tells the history of the Eureka Stockade in diary form, and from the point of view of a nine-year old Anglo-Jewish immigrant. To mark its republication by Ligature, I wrote this article explaining how the idea came to me during a visit to the scene of the battle (Ballarat). The book highlights the multicultural nature of the goldfields, and the role that women and children play in our national story.
‘Remembering Aidan Chambers (1934 to 2025)’, MAGPIES, July 2025.
Internationally acclaimed writer and critic, Aidan Chambers, was a pen pal and colleague of mine for a short time in the early 1990s , at the time when I was editing the short story anthology Landmarks. A few months before his death in May 2025, we renewed our correspondence by email. In this tribute, I draw on that correspondence and on Aidan’s memoir (circulated privately to a small band of friends) to discuss his vocation and his legacy.
‘Afterward, Honour’s Mimic’, in Charmian Clift, HONOUR’S MIMIC, NewSouth 2025
Charmian Clift’s second solo novel, Honour’s Mimic (first published in 1964 and republished on 2025), was inspired by the face of a sponge diver fleetingly seen on the remote Greek island of Kalymnos, where the author had made her first home in Greece. In this ‘Afterward’, I describe the writing of this groundbreaking work, which challenges stereotypes of class and culture in the genre of the romance novel.
‘Afterword, The End of the Morning’, in Charmian Clift, THE END OF THE MORNING, NewSouth 2024
Some six months before her untimely death in 1969, Charmian Clift descrived this unfinished autobiographical work as ‘the novel that every writer wans to do’. In fact, she had been engaged on it since the beginning of her career. In this ‘Afterword’ I describe the protracted process of this milestone book (published for the first time in 2024), and explain why it mattered so much to its author.
SUBSCRIBE TO MY FREE SUBSTACK ‘Being Alone with Myself’
This is the link to my Substack 'home' page listing all of the posts:
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/
My Substack posts connect with my various areas of interest, ranging from authors Charmian Clift and George Johnston to Cold War German history, and from the Golden Age of Australian Children’s Literature to contemporary political perplexities. Plus there is an occasional book review, or a travel piece, and sometimes a reflection on my writing practice.
This Substack is FREE (thanks to the generous publishing grant called the Australian Pension).
Join via the Substack site or send me an email via the CONTACT Button above, and I will subscribe you. You can unsubscribe whenever you like.
Links to some recent posts:
My Mother’s Body (dust to dust)
Something scary: Elizabeth Harrower’s The Watch Tower
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/something-scary-elizabeth-harrowers
Nazis in Australia: A True Crime Cold Case
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/nazis-in-australia-a-true-crime-cold
What Price History?: The Newtown Anti-Eviction Battle of 1931
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/what-price-history-rewriting-the
Sex in the Citadel: Crossing Boundaries of Class and Culture in Charmian Clift’s Honour’s Mimic
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/sex-in-the-citadel-crossing-boundaries
Listening to Story
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/listening-to-story
Hamburg: Between War and Hope
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/hamburg-between-war-and-hope
Easter on Kalymnos 1: Signs of What is to Come
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/easter-on-kalymnos-1-signs-of-what
Easter on Kalymnos 2: Season of Brightness
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/easter-on-kalymnos-2-season-of-brightness
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/the-liberation-of-bergen-belsen
The Book that Saved my Life
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/the-book-that-saved-my-life
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS 2024
‘Walking on Stolen Land: Colonialism versus Occupation in Australian History’ in Occupation Studies Research Network, 15 April 2024
View it on the blog index page.
‘The theoretical model of ‘occupation’ illuminates Australian history by collapsing notions of invasion, settlement, and colonisation into an ongoing process… This bypasses the invasion-versus-peaceful-settlement question at the heart of the virulent national debate known as the History Wars.’
‘Respect a Long Time Coming’, The Weekend Australian, 30-31 March 2024
This article places Charmian Clift’s newly-published autobiographical fiction in its biographical context.
JOURNAL PUBLICATIONS 2023 and 2022
‘Charmian Clift: Living the rich full life’, Antipodes (Melbourne), October 2023
‘Martin Johnston, Man of Two Nations’, Antipodes (Melbourne), October 2023
‘Somewhere other than Hydra? An alternative history of the Johnstons in Greece’, Hydra Book Club Journal, October 2023
‘Celebrating Charmian Clift’s Centenary’, Spectrum, August 2023
‘A Greek Odyssey’, The Good Weekend, October 2022
FOR CHARMIAN CLIFT FANS
30 August 2023 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of author Charmian Clift. www.charmianclift.com.au
See my article in the SMH and Age:
And I recently did this radio interview about Clift’s essays, Sneaky Little Revolutions, for Media Northern Beaches:
For copies of THE LIFE AND MYTH OF CHARMIAN CLIFT and SNEAKY LITTLE REVOLUTIONS, The Selected Essays of Charmian Clift, please go to the Book Shop on this website.
You can also read a number of articles in the Clift & Johnston section of this website, or listen to this radio interview I did with Phillip Adams from the island of Kalymnos (site of MERMAID SINGING).
FOR READERS OF MY BOOKS FOR CHILDREN:
A Banner Bold is back in print, in a new edition that includes Teachers’ Notes. Plenty of stock available from my Book Shop, or from Ligature.
MY PLACE ZOOM WEBINAR. Thanks to 22,400 young readers and their teachers who attended my My Place Zoom Webinar. And thanks to the the Australian Children’s Television Foundation and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image for organising this annual event. If you would like to see the edited recording, here is link:
