Harry Gentle Resource Centre Visiting Fellow Jane Smith is launching her book, One Free Woman, at Avid Reader in West End, Brisbane on Saturday 29 March at 3.30pm. Jane will be joined in conversation by Nike Sulway.

One Free Woman tells the story of Hannah Rigby, a poor Liverpool seamstress, thief and convict, who was transported to New South Wales in 1823. During her time as a convict, she was one of a handful of women to serve two sentences of secondary punishment at the Moreton Bay penal station, one of the harshest convict establishments in Australia. One Free Woman uncovers new details about Hannah Rigby’s life and celebrates a woman who, despite immeasurable suffering and loss, never lost her fierce spirit for life.

Jane Smith is a Queensland author, librarian, archivist and freelance book editor who loves bringing the stories of our past to life for readers of all ages. Jane writes fiction and non-fiction and has had more than twenty books with a historical focus published since 2014. Four of her books have been short- or long-listed for significant literary awards, including an ABIA in 2015 for Captain Thunderbolt from her ‘Australian Bushrangers’ series. More recently, her adult non-fiction Ship of Death came third in the 2021 Frank Broeze Memorial Maritime History Book prize. Jane was awarded a 2024 Visiting Fellowship with the Harry Gentle Resource Centre, Griffith University, to research and write the biography of the convict Hannah Rigby.

For more information and to book for this free event, click here.