To Carve Identity - in Life, Art and Literature

Join local author Susan Steggall as she discusses how she became a writer, the kinds of artworks that inspire her and which she used as inspiration for the main character in her latest novel To Carve Identity.

Novels traditionally end with a ‘happily ever after’, To Carve Identity begins with a ‘happily into the future’.

In 1949 Ellie Gilmartin returned to her native Glasgow after travelling to Australia to learn the truth about her parents’ tragic lives (The Heritage You Leave Behind, 2021). If her professional career as a sculptor was progressing nicely, her private life was in limbo as she reflected on her long-distance relationship with solicitor Jim Blackwood. Fortune smiled on Ellie as Jim came looking for her and so their future began.

The novel follows these two very different people as they negotiate married life – first in London, then in the NSW Hunter Valley town of Maitland. For Jim, marriage represents companionship, stability and family. For Ellie it is more complicated: how to be wife, mother and professional sculptor in mid-twentieth-century regional Australia. That she succeeds is due to determination and a belief in her talent but at story’s end she must truly fashion her own identity.

Free, bookings required.

Tea & coffee on arrival.

Books will be available for purchase on the day. Payment via cash and card transaction.

Enquiries: 8495 5028 or libraryprograms@northernbeaches.nsw.gov.au

Susan Steggall is a local writer and art historian. Her publications include five novels: Forget Me Not (2006), It Happened Tomorrow (2013), Tis the Doing Not the Deed (2019), The Heritage You Leave Behind (2021) and To Carve Identity (2024). She also writes memoirs, biographies and art related articles.