Pittwater

Distinguished and Famous people from Pittwater

📚 Susan Duncan

Susan Duncan turned to life on Pittwater after a long journalism career that included editing major women’s magazines. Her memoir Salvation Creek and its sequel explored rebuilding a life, while fiction drew on waterfront communities and their inhabitants. In discussing her work, she described observing changing light, birds, ferry conversations and the local characters around her. The house she occupied had been built for poet Dorothea Mackellar, adding another literary connection to the shore. Boats and water supply a picturesque setting, but the books also attend to grief, friendship and the practical work of making a new home.

✍️ Morris West

Morris West settled at Clareville in 1982 after years living overseas. Already internationally successful through novels including The Devil’s Advocate and The Shoes of the Fisherman, he continued writing from Sydney’s northern beaches. He also supported the National Library through an endowment and service as council chairman. His books frequently examined power, conscience and the Catholic Church, drawing an international readership into moral and political dilemmas. Clareville provided a later working home for that career. The waterside setting belongs to the years after his reputation was established, when writing and support for cultural institutions remained substantial occupations.