My mum comes from the Winning family, a rather unlikely Scottish surname ripe for puns. I think it might be too much pressure to have as a surname. My beloved grandad, Ian Winning, never won much. But I was winning last night. I am thrilled to have won the WA Premier’s Prize for Book of the Year for The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard.

One of my hopes as I was working on the Katharine Susannah Prichard biography was that it would be published before Phillip Adams retired as a radio broadcaster and I would have a chance to be on Late Night Live with him. The hope came true last night! I was honoured to be a guest for a LNL special on the Prichard and Throssell family alongside KSP’s granddaughter, Karen Throssell. You can listen to it here.

Today, I am on ABC Pilbara at 10:45am AWST and on ABC Perth after the 2:00pm AWST news for the History Repeated segment with Dr Kate Gregory, Battye Librarian.

I have some in-person events coming up too:

State Library of Western Australia, Wed 25 May, 6:00pm – in conversation with Dr Kate Gregory – bookings here.

Boya Community Centre, Mon 20 June, 6:00pm – bookings here.

And an online event for Love to Read Local, organised by Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre, Fri 10 June, 6:00pm – in conversation with Elizabeth Lewis – bookings here.

My book will be for sale at the in-person events. In the meantime, if you’re trying to find a copy, I’m aware that the following places have stock:

• Beaufort Street Books Mt Lawley (49 copies!)
• Lane Bookshop, Claremont (am hoping to sign their copies this afternoon)
• Boffins Books, Perth
• Readings – Carlton and State Library of Victoria
• Roaring Stories, Balmain
• Dymocks, Canberra Centre

There’s plenty of other places, I’m sure. If you’re after the ebook, you can buy it directly from your publisher, or the Kindle edition is now available too.

Today is publication day for The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard. You can join the online launch at 6pm AWST / 8pm AEST – https://meet.google.com/sjt-nvhb-axc

The book should be in your local bookshop from today – if not, please ask them to get it in! In Perth, I know that Beaufort St Books, Boffins and (I think) the Lane Bookshop have copies today.

My first copy of The Red Witch: A Biography of Katharine Susannah Prichard arrived in February and the book became a lot more real to me! We opened a good bottle of Cab Merlot from 2014, the year I began the biography, but alas it didn’t go well with packet sweet and sour chicken which had already been made. I’m so happy with how MUP have published it, from the design to the printing and not to forget the editing. The official publication date has been put back to 17 May due to delays at the ports, but I’ve been assured there were still be copies at my launch eight days earlier. Here’s details of some events taking place: