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Mary-Rose MacColl is the author of the novels - No Safe Place, Angels In the Architecture, Killing Superman, and In Falling Snow. She has also written a non-fiction book, short stories, feature journalism and essays. MacColl grew up in Brisbane, Australia, with three brothers. Both her parents were journalists.
No Safe Place, was a runner-up for the Australian /Vogel literary award. Her non-fiction book, The Birth Wars, was a finalist for the Walkley Awards. In Falling Snow is her North American debut.
MacColl lives in Brisbane, Australia, and Banff, Canada, with her husband and son.
Mary-Rose MacColl's website
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In your Author's Note, you write about accidentally stumbling upon Women of Royaumont: A Scottish Women's Hospital on the Western Front in a library. What inspired you to interweave the story of Royaumont with that of a female doctor battling sexism in the 1970s?
I was really interested in these women from my grandmother's generation who'd achieved something extraordinary at a time when it was very difficult for women to pursue professional lives. I very much wanted to honor them and was surprised that their story hadn't yet captured the public imagination. The seventies was another key period for women in professions. Grace is the first generation of women to "have it all." I didn't think of these things consciously while writing. Iris was always going to be reflecting on her past experience at a later time. Grace walked in one day and started bossing her grandmother around. She happened to be part of the first generation of women who were mothers and doctors and it was just a lovely time to write about.
You gave Iris Crane your grandmother's surname. Do they share any other characteristics?
For me, writing always has an intellectual trigger and an emotional trigger. I was very close to...
Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
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