Emma McEwin

Emma McEwin is a writer and a great-granddaughter of Douglas Mawson. She has a BA and Honours degree in English literature and a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Adelaide.

Emma is the author of An Antarctic Affair (East Street Publications, 2008), which explores the reasons why Douglas Mawson survived a sledging journey in the Antarctic in 1912-13, and the role that her great-grandmother, Paquita, played in his survival. Her second book, The Many Lives of Douglas Mawson, (Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018) explores the ways in which Mawson has been represented and remembered as a public figure while also reflecting on his private legacy, as a husband, father, scientist and academic.

Other publications include ‘Nancy Atkinson: Bacteriologist, Winemaker and Writer (1910-1999)’, published in The Australian Journal of Biography and History (2018), ‘Capturing the Subject: Virginia Woolf’s Battle with Biographical Boundaries’, (Fear of Theory, Brill Academic Publishers, 2021), ‘Atkinson, Nancy (1910-1999)’, published in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (online), 2022, and, most recently, ‘The Fêting of Douglas Mawson: Farewells, Homecomings and Other Notable Occasions’ (Bibliophile, 2024).