Catherine McKinnon is a finalist in this year’s prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award for her second novel Storyland. It’s set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and has five separate narratives spanning four centuries. The characters are connected by blood, history, place and memory – together telling a story of change. 

“It means you’re kind of welcomed into the Australian community of writers I suppose,” she told the Mercury. “You spend years with it and someone said ‘this is worth a read, and I reckon it’s worth it … if you have a read’ and that’s actually [means] a lot.”

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Storyland could be the sort of book studied in high schools in the future because of its portrayal of history, according to the University of Wollongong lecturer.

“I think it would be a good text because it’s got so many perspectives and that’s really good for kids to think about and learn,” McKinnon said

“I really wanted to do something that crossed time so you could see the change that happened to the Illawarra.

“Our history in this area is full of so many big changes and those changes have affected the physical world.”

McKinnon has already begun working on her third novel, which in a similar fashion to Storyland will be set in the future and flick between past and present. War will be the theme of the text and draw from real events like World War II and the Trinity test (the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear weapon).

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Now in its 61st year, the annual Miles Franklin Literary Award is given to a novel of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases.

Author of My Brilliant Career, Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin, established the award through her will to showcase significant and insightful literature that presents Australian life in any of its phases. Miles Franklin believed that “without an indigenous literature, people can remain alien in their own soil”.

Other finalists this year include previous recipients of the award, two-time winner Kim Scott for That Deadman Dance (2011) and Benang (2000), and Michelle de Kretser for Questions of Travel (2013).

Joining them is Eva Hornung, whose shortlisted novel The Last Garden won the Premier’s Award in the 2018 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature; Gerald Murnane, who has been selected for the first time in his 44-year writing career; and Felicity Castagna, for her first move away from young adult and children’s fiction with No More Boats.

The winner will receive $60,000 and be announced on August 26.