No therapy could give me anything like it, says top journalist of fiction

Writing novels is an antidote to the intense investigative reporting of Louise Milligan’s day job. “It’s such an amazing, electrifying feeling; it’s one of the best things that has ever happened to me, writing fiction. There’s no therapy I could ever have that would give me anything like what I get from [it].”

The 41-year-old is speaking about her latest book, Shellybanks , set in Ireland, her country of birth. A crime/mystery, it explores families and secrets, power and faith, poverty and rebellion. Revolving around the harbour of the title, one thread explores the Magdalene laundries-style horrors imposed on young women in Ireland throughout the 20th century.

“Fiction has got to have a kernel of truth and everything that happens in that book could have happened, and did happen, to so many women, and it’s so wrong,” Milligan says.

We’re dining at Bar Idda in Brunswick East, a Sicilian restaurant of 17 years’ standing, quite the achievement in a town with an ever-changing landscape of food offerings. Sharing is de rigueur, so we opt for the crumbed swordfish, the beef-and-almond meatballs, and a chicory salad, plus a glass of white wine each.

The venue is a recent favourite for family events, so for Milligan it holds a special place. Warm and welcoming, the food is excellent and the setting cosy. (When photographer Joe Armao arrives – himself Sicilian – he confirms the steak is rave-worthy.)

While Shellybanks explores “a creepy, intense reality”, it also has a lightness and humour, which Milligan says reflects her Irish/Australian culture: “It’s a novel that has a lot of heart.”

Both it and her first nonfiction offering Pheasant’s Nest have been optioned for the screen by Ambience Entertainment, known for Storm Boy and Muster Dogs .

Holding power to account is stock-in-trade for Milligan. Working as a journalist on the ABC’s Four Corners , her work was key to change in NSW consent laws (after 2018 story I Am That Girl) and her exposé of the toxic culture at Sydney’s Cranbrook School in 2024 led to a government inquiry and the resignation of the school’s principal .

( Four Corners has been in the news lately with the appointment of a new executive producer, and three episodes of the show by another journalist being investigated by the ABC Ombudsman . This interview was conducted before those developments.)

Being a journalist means you have the discipline of research, she says, a skill which carries over into fiction. “So that’s really helpful, I don’t find that a chore, I find it a joy. But then once you’ve done that, you can just let yourself go,” Milligan says. “[Fiction is] much more freeing, obviously, because you can just make things up.”

In 2017, she won the Walkley Book Award for Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell , which began as a story she’d covered at the ABC. Her 7.30 George Pell investigation won the Gold Quill that year.

(The late Cardinal Pell spent 404 days in prison after being convicted of child sex abuse charges. The charges were quashed on appeal by the High Court.