Jane Caro AM is a Walkley award- winning Australian columnist, author, novelist, feminist, public education activist and social commentator. She was awarded the B&T Women in Media Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.
In a previous life she was a multi-award winning advertising copywriter and academic, but these days she is a full time writer and novelist, while also working as a speaker, emcee, and TV, radio and media pundit. She has columns with Nine Media and The Big Smoke, regularly publishes articles for The Saturday Paper and The Monthly, and appears on Nine’s Today and Today Extra, and ABC’s The Gruen.
She has published 14 books. Her 2023 book The Mother, is a best seller and her latest novel Lyrebird was released in April 2025 and is her second novel for adults.
Her young adult historical trilogy (Just a Girl, Just a Queen, Just Flesh and Blood) was a reimagining of Elizabeth Tudor and her widely read nonfiction focusses on women, education and politics. Throughout, Caro has built a career defined by courage, candour and creativity, and her leap from advertising creative director to award-winning novelist has been much easier than most people would think, as she irresistibly told us when we caught up with her at the washed-out Byron Writers Festival.
It’s poignant, isn’t it, that in Byron Bay your book talk, which does give voice to issues of climate change, and your panel with Simon Holmes à Court, was cancelled, because of the feral weather. What surfaced for you when that happened?
Jane Caro: Yes, the irony did not go unnoticed. I was disappointed — I’d been looking forward to the session and to seeing Simon. I always enjoy the Byron Writers Festival, and I’ve been many times. But the weather was extraordinary. I can understand the decision to cancel, because when you’ve got microphones, lights, electrical cords, and relentless rain, safety has to come first. I felt desperately sorry for the organisers. And then of course the next day was sunny, which somehow made it worse. The truth is we’re not prepared for the extremes. But the climate scientists have been absolutely consistent: everything will get more intense. Winters colder, rain heavier, floods more frequent, droughts longer. It is exactly what they’ve been warning us about for years.
What inspired you to take the leap into book writing, in particular, fiction?
Many years ago I wrote a trilogy of young adult novels about Elizabeth Tudor — Just a Girl, Just a Queen, and Just Flesh and Blood. They flew under the radar a bit, because they were YA, but Just a Girl in particular did very well. After that I went back to nonfiction for years, and didn’t think I’d ever write adult fiction.Then I had an idea that demanded to be fiction — The Mother. It became my first adult novel, published in 2022, and I needed to write it in first person, to get inside the head of a woman dealing with coercive control. It was raw and confronting. I pitched it to a literary agent — my first — and after eight sample chapters we had a bidding war. That was thrilling. Alan & Unwin published The Mother. and it became a bestseller — and they asked for another. That became Lyrebird.
It’s interesting to hear you speak about life after advertising, and how your previous career shaped your writing.
Advertising taught me how to engage an audience, and how to be concise and persuasive. It also taught me how to promote and present. That’s invaluable as a novelist. And many writers have advertising backgrounds — it’s not a rare trajectory. With Lyrebird, I initially started with a different idea that wasn’t working. What I realised was that The Mother had been written in first person, but Lyrebird needed multiple points of view. That terrified me — I had no idea how to do it. Like so many women, my first thought was: “You’re an amateur, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
We always say that to ourselves as women, though.
Exactly. I don’t think women should be more like men. I think men should be more like women. A bit more modesty, a bit more willingness to ask for help — it would make them nicer, and more effective. So I asked for help. I found a writing mentor — Malcolm Knox — who encouraged me. And then one morning walking in the Barringtons, a lyrebird stepped out in front of my husband and me. We followed it quietly for ten minutes, completely enchanted. I’d been struggling with the novel, but in that moment I thought: What if a lyrebird witnessed a murder? That was it. That was the spark. It felt exactly like cracking a brief in advertising — the flash of the right idea.
That’s such an extraordinary genesis for a book.
It was. And the idea carried metaphorical weight. A lyrebird mimics, but also bears witness. To me it became about nature recording human crimes — the destruction of the planet, the silenced voices of women. The murder of a woman in Lyrebird is also a metaphor for the harm we are inflicting on the Earth. It allowed me to weave climate change into the narrative organically, not as a lecture but as part of the story. The novel resonated — it’s selling even better than The Mother. I’ve now signed for two more crime novels with Allen & Unwin, with higher advances. That’s gratifying.
Let’s talk about Lyrebird. What about an adaptation?
The screen rights were sold to Vincent Sheehan’s production company, RGM, before the book was even published. He produces Fisk, which just won big at the Logies. They’re working on a TV adaptation. I’m cautiously optimistic. I sold the rights to The Mother to Bryan Brown and Rachel Ward, and they worked hard on it, but nothing came of it. There’s a long way between selling rights and seeing something on screen. But Lyrebird has momentum, so we’ll see.
You’re also doing a literary retreat to Antarctica?
Yes, I’m so excited. It came out of the blue. Hilde Hinton rang me — she’s a wonderful writer with an amazing backstory, and also Samuel Johnson’s sister — and asked if I’d join. We added Jock Serong, another brilliant writer and great company. It makes sense. The people who go on such trips, who attend festivals and buy books, are predominantly older women. And they are too often ignored by publishers and marketers. Both my bestsellers have featured women over 60 as protagonists. Why? Because that’s who’s reading. Women between 55 and 75 — they have time, money, and finally freedom to do what they want. Yet they’re overlooked. It’s ageism and sexism. I simply wrote for them, and it worked.
You describe yourself as an author, novelist, columnist, broadcaster. Which one do you most identify with?
Writer. Always writer. Words are my trade. Whether it’s an ad, a speech, a podcast, a novel, or a 15,000-word essay on public education — it’s all words. I do love speaking. I love the immediacy of connection with an audience. But as a writer, you get a different, often deeper connection. People email me to say The Mother helped them recognise coercive control in their own lives, or in their daughter’s, or neighbour’s. That kind of connection is humbling. As a child, I thought novelists were the pinnacle — the people I most admired. For years I didn’t think I could do it. But like anything, you learn by doing. Editors help, publishers help, and you get better. So I’m proudest of being a novelist.
And what’s next for you?
Not retirement! I’m a grandmother, and I love that part of my life — school pick-ups, snacks, swimming lessons with my husband and the kids. But I won’t be defined by it. The sad reality is too many older women in Australia live in poverty. The statistic is shocking: 60% of single women over 60 live in income poverty. Many face homelessness. That’s unacceptable. At the same time, there is a transfer of wealth happening — husbands and brothers dying younger, parents leaving inheritances — so some women are gaining financial security. But the inequality is stark. What’s next for me is continuing to write — more crime novels, more essays, more speaking. And continuing to argue for women, education, climate, justice.
