Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Jane Harper is the New York Times bestselling author of The Dry; and Force of Nature (both featuring Detective Aaron Falk); and two stand-alone novels: The Lost Man and The Survivors. The Exiles, the third volume in the Aaron Falk series, will publish in January 2023.
Jane previously worked as a print journalist in Australia and the UK and lives in Melbourne with her husband, daughter, and son.
Jane Harper's website
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Was the setting for The Dry inspired by any particular place?
The fictional town of Kiewarra features heavily in the novel, and is a drought-stricken community in regional Victoria, Australia, five hours from Melbourne. The town itself is an amalgamation of many rural communities I visited while working as a journalist in Australia and the UK. While none of those places were anywhere near as dysfunctional as Kiewarra, they helped me get a sense of what it is like for people so reliant on things they cannot control, such as the land and the weather. I was also interested in those communities where people have known each other, for better or worse, for most of their lives.
What was the road to publication for The Dry?
I applied for the Curtis Brown Creative 12-week online novel writing course in late 2014, and as part of the application process submitted a synopsis and 3000-word extract. I came up with an idea for a murder-mystery set in regional Victoria, that eventually became The Dry. The course started in October 2014, and I completed a first draft during the 12 weeks. I knew of the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and set myself the goal of entering, primarily as an artificial deadline ...
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