Caroline Overington

Caroline Overington (born 1970) is an Australian journalist and author. She began her journalistic career with Fairfax Media, writing for The Age Suburban Newspaper Group. In 1993 she was recruited to write for The Age as a sports journalist. In 2002, Fairfax appointed her a foreign correspondent and she moved to New York. On returning to Australia in 2006, Overington took up a position with News Limited as a senior journalist for The Australian. Between 2012 and 2016, Overington was associate editor for The Australian Women's Weekly magazine, before returning to The Australian in 2016.

Overington won the News Limited Sir Keith Murdoch Prize for Journalism in 2006 and is a two-time Walkley Award winner. Other awards include the Blake Dawson Prize (2008) and the Davitt Award for Crime Writing (2015).

Overington has written ten books, including seven works of fiction. Her most recent title, The One Who Got Away, released by HarperCollins in April 2016, is a thriller novel set in California.

Life and career

Overington was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1970.^[1] One of three children in her family,^[2] she grew up in Melton, Victoria and was educated at Melton South Primary School and Melton High School.^[3] She graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in journalism.^[4]

Overington began her journalism cadetship with The Melton Mail Express, and other titles in The Age Suburban Newspaper group, covering courts, local council, and school fetes.

Melbourne businessman and editor, Alan Kohler, recruited Overington to write for The Age in 1993, where she became a sports writer. She covered two Olympic and Paralympic games. Several of her pieces were selected for the Best Australian Sports Writing and Photography anthologies, published by Random House in the 1990s. She was awarded the Annita Keating Trophy for Female Journalism in Sport.

So that Overington could take up a position as foreign correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, she and her young family, including twins born in 2000,^[5] moved to New York City in 2002. Her first book, Only in New York, published by Allen & Unwin in 2006, is a comedy based on her family's experiences in the United States.^[6]

While based in the States, Overington's work included an investigation into an Australian literary scandal, known as Forbidden Lies. Together with Malcolm Knox, Overington won a Walkley Award for investigative journalism in 2004 for her investigation into the mysterious life of Jordanian-American-Australian author Norma Khouri.^[7] Both Overington and Knox appeared in Forbidden Lie$, the documentary by Anna Broinowski that won a Walkley Award and two Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.^[8][9]

Following her return to Australia in 2006, Overington took up a position as senior journalist with News Limited's The Australian.^[10] She uncovered the AWB scandal, whereby AWB, owned by the Australian Government, paid $290 million in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Program. Overington's book Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board Scandal, released by Allen & Unwin in 2007, provided an account of the scandal.^[11]

On the day of the 2007 federal election, at a Wentworth polling place, Overington was witnessed in a public dispute with George Newhouse, the Labor candidate for the seat.^[12] The Australian published an apology to Newhouse from Overington over the encounter in December 2007.^[13][14][15]

Overington's first novel, Ghost Child was released in 2009 to both literary and popular acclaim. The book was short-listed for the Davitt Prize for Best Adult Crime Novel.^[16] Her second novel, I Came To Say Goodbye, was short-listed for Book of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards in 2010.^[16]

The novel Matilda is Missing, released in 2011, told the tale of a divorce custody case, through the eyes of a court-appointed psychologist.^[17]

In 2012, Overington was appointed associate editor of Australia's oldest and best-selling magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly,^[18] where she has interviewed former Prime Minister Julia Gillard; screen actress Helen Mirren; comedian Ellen de Generes; industrialist Gina Rinehart; and US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

In 2014, Overington's book Last Woman Hanged was launched, documenting the results of Overington's five-year investigation into the conviction and execution of Louisa Collins in New South Wales in 1889. In the book Overington claims that Collins, who was tried four times for murder, suffered a miscarriage of justice and may well have been innocent.^[19] Overington linked the trial to Australian colonial history and to the early suffragette movement in Australia.

In March 2016, Overington was appointed an associate editor of The Australian.^[10] Her book The One Who Got Away, a psychological thriller set in California, was released in April 2016. Reviewer Riahn Smith, writing for News Corp Australia's The Weekly Times described the book as a neatly told page turner that inspires eager anticipation.^[20]

Overington has homes in Bondi, Australia and Santa Monica, California.^[21]

Awards and Prizes

• 2004 - Joint winner of the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism for the Norma Khouri Investigation^[22]
• 2006 - Awarded the second annual Sir Keith Murdoch Award for Journalism^[23]
• 2007 - Winner of the Walkley Award for Investigative Journalism for coverage of the AWB Kickback Scandal^[22]
• 2008 - Winner of the Blake Dawson Waldron Prize for Business Literature^[24][25]
• 2015 - Winner of the Davitt (Non-Fiction) Award for Crime Writing^[26]

Works

Non-fiction

• Only in New York : How I took Manhattan (With the Kids). Allen & Unwinn. 2006. ISBN 1741149614. 
• Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board Scandal. Allen & Unwinn. 2007. ISBN 9781741751949. 
• Last Woman Hanged. HaperCollins. 2014. ISBN 9780732299729. 

Fiction

• Ghost Child. Random House Australia. 2009. ISBN 9781863256803. 
• I Came to Say Goodbye. Random House Australia. 2010. ISBN 9781864711578. 
• Matilda is Missing. Bantam. 2011. ISBN 9781742750385. 
• Sisters of Mercy. Bantam. 2012. ISBN 9781742750422. 
• No Place Like Home. Random House Australia. 2013. ISBN 9781742758015. 
• Can You Keep a Secret?. Random House Australia. 2014. ISBN 9780857983572. 
• The One Who Got Away. HaperCollins. 2016. ISBN 9780732299743. 

References

External links

• Official website