The author talk is hosted by Philip Selth OAM, retired executive director of the NSW Bar Asociation. The talk is entitled 'Coastwatchers'. Judith was always a would-be writer, but it wasn’t until Judith Hollinshed and her husband went to Papua New Guinea to grow coffee that she considered publication. Her memoir was published before she ventured into fiction. Papua New Guinea has very recently achieved independence and Australia is helping to organise the transition. The thriller revolves around the relief journalist Nicola Jameson, fresh into Mount Hagen following a disastrous eight months in Port Moresby, working for Papua Guinea’s only daily newspaper, covering this tension and the new administration’s handling of affairs is a God-given chance for her to revive her career. But the more she gets into the intricacies of traditional custom and the politics of land transition, the more she loses sight of the necessary divide between journalism and participation—especially when she finds herself attracted to Kuria plantation owner Ian Hilder.