Sydney screen writer turned novelist and stauch republican of many years, Valda Marshall, has written The First President, a story of love and politics as Australia becomes a republic. The book is set in 1920s Adelaide and, later, in Sydney in 2016 when a woman discovers that she could be closely related to the British Royal Family. This happens while she runs to become the first President of the Commonwealth of Australia. Read more in an interview with Valda Marshall [Australia becomes a republic in 2016 by Katrina Adamski in The North Shore Times] and what she thinks about the republic debate since 1999…….
Woman for an Australian Republic, Adelaide Ironside, republican poet and artist 1831-1867
Self portrait 1855, Newcastle Art Gallery NSW
