Bundanon

Mary Ethna Black is a globe-trotting physician from Lambeg in Northern Ireland. Mary has close genetic ties to salmon, and this might explain why she keeps returning to Australia, the land of her conception. She has raised two children with the oarsman who saved her life from pirates in the Bay of Bengal. Her son was birthed on Holloways beach in Queensland, and her daughter was born underwater in London. All family members are elite sailors apart from Mary who is very proud of winning a silver medal in 2006 as Chief Ballast in the family’s Microtonner dinghy.  

Mary has recently acquired an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, was visiting scholar at the Centre for Life Writing at Oxford University and is an honorary professor at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. She has won or listed for over 30 literary prizes and is a Varuna Foundation alumna. Migration, climate, conflict, and water are common themes in her fiction and life writing. 

In residence at Bundanon 

I will be working on ‘Splav – Adventures with My Family on the River Sava’. This is a love story/reflection on migration and home, centred round a century-old barge in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The reality is that when you leave home you can never go back, because both you and home will have changed. What remains is the common search for sanctuary. ‘Splav’ will be published by Abacus/Little, Brown/Hachette in 2026 and my son is the illustrator. 

I’ll also revise Platypus, a short story about life, death, and a river in New South Wales. At least, that’s the plan…