Maggie McKellar

She'd become less suddenly.

She knew she'd felt that exact same way before, though she didn't feel tears coming the way they burn the face and blur the eyes.

Her face was cold to the touch.

Her heart rate lowered, her eyes dry, and her arms, chicken-skinned and thin as kindling, began to start a fire.

And I just thought it was so powerful because it alludes to the grief that she is carrying with the loss of her sister as well.

And that's just the – so she's this tiny person carrying this enormous burden.

And her grandfather's words save her, I think.

Yes, there is.

And that sort of that ultimate, the hinge scene of the book, which was for me Albert's funeral, felt like the moment when August started to recover.

How could you not find that scene where she describes the Brolga rising and dancing as such a powerful scene?

And it's the moment where August suddenly feels, is able to express the weight of her grief.

And I thought that was really powerful.

Was it that?

It was that scene, but then what...

I didn't realise what was happening to me.

I was reading it in the middle of the night and I was really affected by that scene.

I read it and went, well, that's powerful writing.

That's really, that's gone straight in.

And then what really undid me was the layering of the next scene is an extract from the letter of the Reverend where he describes the attack on the mission and he describes a young Aboriginal man defending

his family, and he's killed.