An Afternoon with Vanessa McCausland and Anna Downes

A remote French island. A crumbling villa. A reclusive film star. And an inheritance Saskia never expected. 

Dreaming in French is the stunning new novel from the critically acclaimed author of The Beautiful Words.

Vanessa McCausland studied English and Australian literature at the University of Sydney and dreamed of one day writing fiction. She then went on to immerse herself completely in writing about real people, working as a journalist for twenty years. Vanessa has been a news, medical, entertainment and arts reporter for the Daily Telegraph and her writing has appeared in numerous other publications. She's happy to now, finally, be creating fictional characters. She lives in Sydney with her husband and daughter.

Anna Downes was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing and appeared in BBC TV shows such as Eastenders, Casualty, Holby City, and Dalziel and Pascoe, as well as a long-running stage production of "The Dresser" in London's West End. She has degrees from both Manchester University (Drama) and RADA (Acting). She has been published in the Zodiac Literary Review, shortlisted for the Sydney Writers Room Short Story Prize and longlisted for the Margaret River Short Story Competition. The Safe Place was inspired by Anna’s experiences working as a live-in housekeeper on a remote French estate in 2009-10.