Dr Willa McDonald - BA/LLB, PhD (Australian Studies) - is Senior Lecturer in Media at Macquarie University where she teaches and researches creative non-fiction writing and narrative journalism. A former journalist, she has worked in print, television and radio, including for the Sydney Morning Herald, the Bulletin, the Times on Sunday, ABC TV and ABC Radio National. She is currently writing a cultural history of colonial Australian literary journalism for Palgrave Macmillan. She is the chief author of the Australian Colonial Narrative Journalism Database, now available on AustLit. Willa’s books are: Warrior for Peace: Dorothy Auchterlonie Green (2009, Australian Scholarly Publishing) and The Writer’s Reader: Understanding Journalism and Non-fiction (with Susie Eisenhuth, 2007, Cambridge University Press).  

Appointments

Willa is a member of the executive of the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS); the MQ Arts Faculty Board; the advisory board of the international journal, Literary Journalism Studies, and has been a judge of the UN Media Peace Awards since 2015. She was a committee member of the American-Australian Fulbright Awards, NSW Selection Committee, from 2003-2007. Her memberships include: the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies (IALJS); the Australian Association of Writing Programs, the Journalism Education Association of Australia (JERAA), and the Australian and New Zealand Communication Associaiton (ANZCA) 

Awards

• 2015 - Best Article in Literary Journalism Studies Prize by the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies.
• 2009 - MQ Arts Faculty Higher Degree Research Award
• 2007 - SCMP Award for Excellence in Student Engagement in 2007
• 2000 - Letter of Congratulations from Vice-Chancellor on the excellence of her PhD thesis (the practice at the time in lieu of formal prizes or commendations)

Research Interests

Willa is currently working on several research projects including a history of narrative/literary journalism in colonial Australia to be published by Palgrave Macmillan and an edited academic collection on social justice and literary journalism.

She welcomes postgraduate students in narrative/literary journalism (practice and history), creative non-fiction, life writing (including biography and memoir), fiction, nature and place writing, travel writing, ethics in writing, and long and short narrative storytelling generally.