Midwife and author Fiona McArthur’s medical rural romances
Fiona McArthur has 33 years working as a midwife in rural areas under her belt. So it’s little wonder babies are a popular feature of her novels.
READ one of Fiona McArthur’s 46 published books and you’re guaranteed a common factor — babies.
Thanks to 33 years working as a midwife in rural areas, the author — who lives on an 80ha farm in Kempsey, northern NSW — has cornered the market in what her publisher calls medical rural romance.
“Every book of mine not only has a happy ending, but a baby, and even some gory details,” says Fiona, who has penned three nonfiction books about midwifery, with the other 43 fiction.
“But the gory details aren’t as bad as you think. It’s the birth, water and blood, but it’s not talking about vaginas, but rather the whole wonder of birth.
“It gives a sense of not being terrified of the process. More than anything my books are about strong women and strength between women.”
Fiona’s latest novel, published by Penguin, is The Bush Telegraph (and arrives in the WHO International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife).
The story follows nurse Maddy Locke returning to the small outback town where she gave birth to her daughter, now proving she’s got what it takes to run the local medical centre.
Fiona, 60, released her first title two decades ago. Previous to that she had studied nursing in Sydney, where she met her husband Ian, also studying nursing.
The couple moved to Kempsey, where Fiona had five sons while working as a midwife for 33 years, retiring just two years ago.
Her career included teaching advanced obstetrics in remote rural areas and mentoring young teenage mums.
But talk to Fiona about the state of health and medicine in rural and remote areas and you simply hear inspiring stories. “I was so blessed to be with women during their pregnancy, labour, breastfeeding, then have reunions at the supermarket in town and then be there when those babies themselves grew up and gave birth,” says the grandmother of nine.
“We would have tennis tournaments of the midwives versus the doctors. In rural areas particularly there’s a rapport, trust and interdisciplinary communication that comes to the fore.
“Funding and resources are always an issue in rural areas but if people feel genuinely passionate about what they’re doing then resources are less important.”
As dedicated as Fiona is to midwifery, it was as a 30-year-old that, wanting to earn a little extra money, she began dabbling in writing.
While it took a decade for her first book to be published, she has since been prolific, writing not only for Penguin, who has eight of her tomes (each about 80,000 words), but also Mills and Boon (shorter at about 50,000 words), and several self-published books (“I can have fun
with self-publishing books, the cover, the advertising, writing about things that others wouldn’t publish”).
Given her career, midwifery makes it into each book,
including breech births,
caesareans, and forcep deliveries.
And given her sunshiny personality, each has a happy ending.
“What I want in my books is to show the world is full of good, kind people and we don’t talk about them enough.”
Having said that, her books touch on heady topics, from domestic violence to Indigenous Australians, and in The Bush Telegraph, alcoholism. “The characters cry through the book, but ultimately at the end are uplifted. We have tough times but get through because we have the support of others.”
For research, Fiona travels around Australia and the world — a trip on the Orient Express resulted in her book Midwife on the Orient Express. And yes, given these books do have a romantic element, Fiona is well versed at creating sexual tension, but never describes the actual “docking procedure”.
She writes at least two hours a day, learning the value of dedicating a space from 4am for the words to flow, adding she feels “edgey and cross” if she doesn’t follow her daily writing ritual.
“When I write I see the first scene. I don’t have a plot or character names, but the characters talk their way through the book.
“It makes it pacier because I don’t know what is going to happen.
“I love losing myself in the story.”
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