As a best-selling author, Rachael Treasure knows how to use the power of storytelling to prompt social change. While she has worn many hats - a former jillaroo in Queensland, a rural journalist for the ABC rural radio, and - perhaps most integral to her writing is her journey as a woman working in agriculture. "As I've stepped into the world of repairing landscapes, using regenerative principles - which is something I do - I've written about it more and more," Treasure said.
"It's embedded into every single one of my stories." If her novels had to fit a genre, they would most likely fall under rural literature. However, Treasure isn't one to be fenced in.
"People think I write rural romance," she said. "But I actually write rural rebellion novels. "I'm suggesting that we rebel against the status quo and start really having a think about what's important for ourselves and our children to come.
" Treasure said her love for the land had been there since childhood and credited her aunt and uncle's dairy farm in St Marys as being "foundational". "They were dairy farmers ..
. I remember as a child, they were suddenly cut out of the milk tanker collection run," she said. "I just remembered that ripple effect of devastation of 'how do we pivot?' You've got cows that are producing milk, and suddenly, there's nowhere to send that milk.
" She said watching her uncle accommodate this and change to an "integrated farm where the milk went to the pigs, and there was sheep and wool and bees" in.
