Meet the author Debra Oswald

About the author/book:

One ordinary extraordinary woman living through a century of massive change, from the bestselling author of The Family Doctor.

Meet Betty: storyteller, feminist, eternally curious and phenomenally old. On the eve of her hundredth birthday party, Betty tells us her story.

Born into poverty in pre-war London, and growing up fast during the Blitz, Betty grabs the chance at a bigger life by migrating to Australia. On board the SS Asturias she meets three people who will influence the course of her life—Pearl, a good-hearted party girl; Athena, a Greek woman on her way to marry a man she has never met; and Leo, a German Jew who lost his family in the war.

In Sydney, Betty is making ends meet as a waitress at the famous Trocadero dance hall when she stumbles into a rushed courtship with Donald, a wealthy businessman, and dedicates herself to being the ideal 1950s suburban housewife. But life has other plans for Betty, and soon she must find a way to do more than survive.

Set against a century of world events and social upheavals, Betty takes us to the frontlines of the anti-war protests and the women's liberation movement of the 1970s, to the AIDS crisis during the 1980s, to Mexico and eventually becomes a TV screenwriter. Even in her nineties, Betty is still passionately engaged with the world, still surprising us.

Debra Oswald is a playwright, screenwriter and novelist. She is a two-time winner of the NSW Premier's Literary Award and author of the novels Useful (2015), The Whole Bright Year (2018) and The Family Doctor (2021). She was creator/head writer of the first five seasons of the successful TV series Offspring.

She will be in conversation with Michaela Kalowski. Michaela is an interviewer, moderator & curator for writers/ideas festivals. She’s curator of ABC RN’s Big Weekend of Books. She’s co-presenter & co-writer of a two-part podcast for ABC RN, tracing part of her family’s history, called Laya’s Way Home.

Author Debra Oswald. Image credit: Alex Vaughan