Dr. Willa Mcdonald

Biography

Associate Professor Willa McDonald researches and teaches creative non-fiction writing and narrative journalism. An internationally recognized journalist, she has focused her research on literary journalism, particularly in the Australian context. Over the last twenty years, she has worked consistently to establish the discipline of literary journalism studies, specifically connecting it to themes of democracy and social justice. Willa has published four books in this area, including the recent monograph 'Literary Journalism in Colonial Australia' (Palgrave, 2023) and the edited collection 'Literary Journalism and Social Justice' (Palgrave, 2022). In 2015, she co-authored the audio-documentary 'Vagabond – Digging Dirt Melbourne' and has also contributed to a database of colonial Australian literary journalism housed by AustLit, a national online resource for the humanities. Willa has served as the President of the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies and is a founding editor of the international book series 'Palgrave Studies in Literary Journalism'. Her work has garnered both national and international awards, and in 2024, she was recognized as the Anne Dunn Scholar for excellence in research in the fields of journalism and communication. Additionally, she received the Article Prize from the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies in 2015 and was shortlisted for the prestigious Calibre Essay Prize in 2019. Willa’s research interests include life writing (memoir and biography), creative non-fiction writing, narrative and literary journalism, and the history of Australian colonial journalism.

Research Interests

Experience