Novel by UWS graduate draws accolades

Novel by UWS graduate draws accolades

UWS Doctor of Creative Arts (DCA) candidate Jesse Blackadder’s new novel The Raven’s Heart (Fourth Estate) is gathering accolades with its recent publication, after winning a national manuscript award in late 2009.

Set in 16th century Scotland, the book grew from Jesse’s investigation of her family history, which led her to the ruins of the old Blackadder Castle in Scotland. Jesse’s discovery that one of her Blackadder ancestors was caught up in the infamous plot to murder the husband of Mary Queen of Scots soon became a burning story idea.

“The most important thing was hearing the 500 year old legend that is still being told today about the Blackadder widow being left in the Castle after the head of the family was killed,” Jesse says. “It made me determined to write her story.”

The manuscript won the 2009 Varuna HarperCollins Manuscript Development Award, with Peter Bishop, the then creative director of Varuna, saying, “Jesse Blackadder is one of Australia’s most interesting emerging writers and capable of the big canvas”.

According to a recent review in The Sunday Telegraph, “Blackadder’s greatest achievement comes at the end of the book when she posits the ephemeral nature of humans against a weighty sense of history and an ageless landscape, something she does with an incisive grace that truly elevates her story”.

Jesse says it took her several years to research and write the novel, including three trips to Scotland to visit historic sites that provide the setting.

Jesse’s research for her third novel has taken her to a very different landscape – Antarctica. Fascinated by cold and icy places, Jesse is basing her next novel on the true story of the first woman to reach Antarctica.