Q&A: Renae Black, Author of Red Dirt Home

Briefly tell us about your book.

Red Dirt Home is set in Outback Queensland and tells the story of a young female station hand, Paige Bennett living her best life working in the red dirt of the Channel Country. That is, until she’s violently attacked by someone she knows and trusts, leaving her unemployed, homeless and broken. Trying to forget what happened to her, she winds up on a neighbouring cattle station Karilga where the owner’s son Jackson Brady has to leave behind his country larrikin ways and step up to manage the property after his father’s accident.

Red Dirt Home is about overcoming the past to grow as a person and move into the future and how the people we least expect can really prove themselves to be exactly who we need when we need them. It’s a story about how love can grow where trust exists.

What are you hoping the reader will take away from reading your book? 

This story captures the definition of resilience. It delves into the shame and confusion victims can feel after being assaulted and how this can impact on them reporting to police or even speaking of their trauma to other people. And then how powerful it is to be believed and have people in your corner.

In my day job as a social worker, I’ve walked alongside women, children and men who have experienced assaults and what I’ve learnt is that there isn’t one way to be assaulted, to react to an assault or length of time to heal from an assault. But one of the biggest contributors to that healing process, is the way people around them responded. I really hope my readers remember how powerful it is to be believed and have people in your corner, so if they’re ever in the position to believe a victim of such a horrific act, they can. It’s the first step in turning victims into survivors.

What was the most challenging part of writing this book? 

The biggest challenge was making sure the story had equal shades of light and dark. Red Dirt Home covers some confronting themes and I wanted to make sure that the dark scenes were realistic yet handled with care. Those difficult parts needed to be balanced out with scenes that were more light-hearted and that’s where the people around Paige came in. Jackson plays the biggest role as her love interest, but he had his own challenges going on, so the antics of the Karilga Cattle Station community kept the equilibrium.

If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring writers, what would it be? 

Invest in yourself. You don’t have to go out and spend a fortune, but if you’re serious about writing then allow yourself the space and time to be creative and write. Align yourself with likeminded people – the Australian writing community is a really welcoming and wonderful place to be. It’s very accessible through social media (and you don’t have to be published to have a writing or reading Instagram account), or for a small fee, there’s plenty of organisations like state writers centres or genre specific groups you can join. You’ll learn so much just from being around other writers!

What’s your daily writing routine like and what are you working on at the moment?
I work full time, have two young children and volunteer on the Romance Writers of Australia Committee so life is very hectic but writing is so therapeutic that it’s something I need (and want) to do. I’m a night owl, so once the kids and my tradie husband are in bed, I’ll stay up for a few hours with the tv on softly and smash out some words. I try and write a full scene each night, so I don’t break the flow of being in that moment. Before I go to bed, I’ll write a couple of dot points about where I see the story heading in the scene or chapter, then I can jump straight back into it again the next night.

I’m currently completing structural edits for my next release, Breaking Free which will be published with Escape in August 2024.

Buy a copy of Red Dirt Home here.