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
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'.
BOOK NOW FOR CHARMIAN CLIFT’S KALYMNOS: A Workshop for Readers and Writers, operated by Limelight Arts Travel and led by Nadia Wheatley.
To be held on the island 03-12 June 2026.
Bookings are open for this eight-day workshop. 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.
For information or to secure your place on the tour, email info@limelight-arts-travel.com.au
NEWS
SUBSCRIBE TO MY 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 will have some new content about Charmian Clift, but they will also connect with my other areas of interest, ranging from Cold War German history to the Golden Age of Australian Children’s Literature, and from the radical Sixties to contemporary political perplexities. Plus there might be an occasional book review, recipe, or reflection on my writing practice.
Some writers’ Substacks are on a user-pay principle, but mine will be FREE.
Join via the Substack site or sent me an email via the CONTACT Button above, and I will subscribe you. You can unsubscribe whenever you like.
Links to some recent individual 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
A Vocation for Reading: The Legacy of Aidan Chambers
https://nadiawheatley.substack.com/p/a-vocation-for-reading-the-legacy
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
BOOK PUBLICATION: Forthcoming 2026
Strange New World —Belsen’s First Year of Freedom. To be published by Monash University Press in 2026
Described by Dr Thomas Rahe, the recently-retired Director of the Bergen-Belsen Gedenkstätte (Memorial) as ‘a huge step forward in the historiography of Bergen-Belsen’.
BOOK PUBLICATIONS 2025
Charmian Clift’s second novel, Honour’s Mimic, afterword by Nadia Wheatley, re-published NewSouth 2025.
BOOK PUBLICATIONS 2024
Nadia Wheatley, ed., Charmian Clift, The End of the Morning, NewSouth, April 2024.
This comprises the opening section of Clift’s previously unpublished autobiographical novel and thirty essays, with an Afterword and Notes by Clift’s editor and biographer, Nadia Wheatley.
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. Plenty of stock available from my Book Shop, or from your usual book supplier.
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:
