Donna M Cameron is the author of several produced stage plays, including ‘Blame it on the Moon‘, ‘The Salt Maiden’ and her critically acclaimed solo work, ‘The Flowering.’ A selection of her scripts and production rights are sold through the Australian Script Centre.

In 2011, Donna was nominated for an AWGIE for her ABC radio play ‘Water Tight.’ Previous to this, three other plays were produced and broadcast by ABC Radio National: ‘The Salt Maiden’, ‘Shopping for Life Forms’ and ‘Bringing Down the Moon’.

Her film script of ‘The Salt Maiden’  (a Beverley Callow production) premiered at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, won best screenplay and short film at the Port Stephens Film Festival, and overall winner of the Avoca Cinema Coasties Film Festival 2015.

She is a recipient of the Australian Writers Guild/ Queensland Theatre Company Mentorship Award and twice recipient of the Fresh Ground Scheme at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts.

A graduate of the NIDA playwright’s studio, she holds a BA in theatre (University of Southern Queensland) and a Research Masters – writing contemporary stories from ancient myth (Queensland University of Technology).

For many years, Donna has worked with young people to self-devise theatrical works and she has been commissioned numerous times for community theatre projects involving young people.

Donna had three poems and a short story published in Centrelines; a Collection of Women’s Writing. In 2020 Donna’s short story ‘Swimming Towards the Sun’ was a finalist in the Tasmanian Writers’ Prize and was published in the 2020 Forty South Short Story Anthology. In 2024 her short story ‘Calcutta Manhatten’ was published in the Glimmer Press anthology, Futures.

A few years back, a story came to her in the form of a novel. She commenced work on it under a Regional Arts Development Fund grant, which allowed her to work with structural editor Nicola O’Shea.

In 2015 she was selected for a Varuna Litlink residency to further develop what became ‘Beneath the Mother Tree’. The writing of this novel was such a joyous ride, Donna hopes to write novels now for the rest of her days. ‘Beneath the Mother Tree’ was published by MidnightSun in August 2018. It was listed as a top Australian fiction read for 2018 by the Adelaide Advertiser, longlisted for the 2019 Davitt Awards and a recipient of the Screen Queensland/Queensland Writer’s Centre Adaptable program.

In 2020, the manuscript of Donna’s second novel ‘The Rewilding‘ allowed her to become a KSP Fellowship recipient and runner up in the Writing NSW Varuna Fellowship Award. It also granted her a 2021 Varuna Fellowship at the National Writer’s House and was published by Transit Lounge in March 2024.

I have been told readers like insights into author’s lives, so let me share with you here –  I live in an original 1940s seaside cottage beside a national park with my little family in what I think is one of the most beautiful parts of the world – the east coast of Australia, just north of Sydney.

I love gardening and bushwalking and eating pavlova.

My favourite book as a child was ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett, who I  recently discovered was also a playwright.

When I was seven, I dreamt about being a writer and had a fantasy to build a library attached to my parent’s house in suburban Brisbane. My best friend Jane, who lived next door, loved to draw. We concocted a plan that I would write the story and she would illustrate. We were going to fill the ‘library’ with our books. The first book we created was called ‘The Little Girl and the Ghost.’ However, I was an atrocious speller so it was actually titled – ‘The Litle Gril and the Gohst.’

We were so proud, we ran and showed Jane’s mother, who proceeded to read the book aloud phonetically. We all laughed at the adventures of the ‘gril’ and the ‘gohst’, but I will never forget my heartbreak in that moment. I thought – ‘I can’t be a writer. I’m not smart enough. Everyone will laugh at my spelling.’

As it turned out, to overcome debilitating shyness, I went on to become an actress.

It was only when I started writing seriously, in my late twenties, that this memory came flooding back. It made me realise that life works in the most wondrous ways, as my acting has and still does inform and enhance my writing. The only difference being – my laptop is now my audience and my costume is often my pyjamas.

I hope you enjoy my work as much as I enjoy creating it.
Have fun exploring the site!

Donna x

I gratefully acknowledge the Darkinjung and Guringai people as the Traditional Owners of the land I am privileged enough to live and work on, and pay my respects to the Elders and knowledge holders past, present and future whose ancestral ties remain attached to Country, granting them natural and ongoing sovereignty.