Foxground journalist and author Diana Plater has the “great privilege” of interviewing Jane Caro on Saturday night at the Kiama Readers’ Festival gala dinner!

Diana, a former political reporter and war correspondent, will join Caro on stage at Kiama Leagues Club to discuss the Walkley Award winner’s wide and varied writing career. Caro is a regular newspaper columnist, social commentator and novelist, whose book The Mother explores the devastating impact of domestic violence on families. It is an issue Diana is keen to delve into when she interviews Caro, whose novel may be fictional but its topic - coercive control and family violence - is all too real for the one in four women who experience it.

“I want to ask Jane why she thinks this keeps happening, and what can be done about it,” says Diana. As a fellow novelist, whose books look at our history, Diana is also keen to explore Caro’s passion for Queen Elizabeth I, the subject of her popular trilogy for young adult readers set in the 1500s.  

“I also have elements of history in my books including my non-fiction and memoir and I find the research component absolutely fascinating,” says Diana. “But writing a novel is a lot harder than journalism. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to dash off a novel has no idea!”

The writing process is another topic she’s likely to explore with Caro. Plater is in the midst of writing her second novel - The Cedar-getter’s Granddaughter - based on the South Coast in the 1800s. 

“When the first British settlers colonised Sydney they started looking for timber,” explains Diana. “The Illawarra rainforest was full of Red Cedar and the cedar getters, who were escaped convicts or those with a ticket of leave, raced down here and started logging it. They had to be really secretive about where they found it, because it’s so valuable. The softness of the wood makes it ideal for furniture. By the 1830s it was nearly all cleared, and the cedar getters moved further north.”

In the book, which she expects will be published next year, Diana recognises the role played by the South Coast’s Aboriginal communities, who helped the cedar getters find the timber to mill. As a journalist she spent several years working in the Kimberley and the Northern Territory and has paid tribute to the Aboriginal communities she worked alongside by giving them a voice in both her fiction and non-fiction writing. 

“I feel honoured to have Aboriginal friends throughout my life who I have connected with, first as a journalist and storyteller, but most importantly through friendship.”

Diana’s most recently published novel, Whale Rock, is based on her experience as a journalist living and working in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Diana reported on the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution, where a group of leftist revolutionary guerrillas and intellectuals overthrew the right-wing dictatorship in 1979.

Diana, who has dual United States citizenship, was inspired to travel to the war-torn country after meeting a female soldier who joined the revolution and moved up through the ranks to become a commander.

“I was working for AAP and interviewed a female commandant who was visiting Australia at the time,” explains Diana. “Her story and that of the revolution was fascinating so I spent three months learning Spanish, packed my bags, and went to Nicaragua to live for a year.”

It was during this time that Diana began exploring the impacts of trauma and post-traumatic-stress disorder after meeting former soldiers suffering from the psychological effects of war. 

“Whale Rock is about hidden trauma but it is ultimately a tale of redemption and rebirth,” says Diana. “It is about the serious issues facing Australia today; immigration, the state of the media, politics, the environment and giving First Nations People - particularly members of the Stolen Generations - a voice. But it’s also about love and friendship and dancing.” 

Whale Rock was awarded Gold for Popular Literary Fiction in the 2019 Global Ebook

Awards. If you are lucky enough to have a ticket to the sold out session with Diana interviewing Jane Caro on Saturday night, take the time to also learn about Diana’s rich and varied writing. 

Tickets are still available for most sessions: https://library.kiama.nsw.gov.au/Events/Adults-events/Kiama-Readers-Festival-2024