News Archive

UWA Publishing title Murdering Stepmothers: The Execution of Martha Rendell , by Anna Haebich, has won the 2011 Margaret Medcalf Award.

Murdering Stepmothers , a work of fiction, is based on the true events surrounding the trial and execution of Martha Rendell - the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia.

Inspired by her shared experiences as a stepmother, Anna Haebich meticulously researched Martha's story to bring to life the people of Perth through the perspective of five different characters creating a fresh, vivid, fusion of factual history and insightful imagining.

UWA Publishing title, Vite Italiane: Italian lives in Western Australia , by Susanna Iuliano, was also shortlisted for this year's Margaret Medcalf Award.

The annual award, which includes $1000 prize money, is presented to a fiction or non-fiction writer whose work demonstrates the use of archival sources, and substantial (but not necessarily exclusive) use of State archives held by the State Records Office.

The award honours Miss Margaret Medcalf OAM, the second State Archivist for Western Australia (1971-1989), for her valuable contribution to the development of archives in Western Australia.

Media references

Britt Ingerson (UWA Publishing)    61 8  6488 6804  /  0406 440 453

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)    61 8  6488 5563  /  0432 637 716