Barbara Sumner is a writer and filmmaker from New Zeleand who’s debut novel, The Gallows Bird has just been published by Pantera Press.

Whilst The Gallows Bird is Barbara’s debut foray into fiction, she  is no stranger to storytelling. 

Barbara’s career has covered production of three highly acclaimed feature documentaries, stints in journalism and television as well as the publication of her memoir, Tree of Strangers back in 2020.  

Barbara started writing The Gallows Bird on a trip to Australia almost 20 years ago, feeling a compulsion to look into stories of convicts and their heroic survival - only to realise most of these were men’s stories. 

It is in the pages of this remarkable novel that Barbara sets out to write Australia’s convict women back into the history of this violent and oppressive time and what it took to survive - not only the journey, but to overcome their pasts and make a new life for themselves far from everything they knew. 

Set between London and Sydney in the early nineteenth century, this is a remarkable story of the best and worst of humanity; of tenacity and survival against all odds. 

I was delighted to have the chance to speak with Barbara on the podcast recently.