Caroline Overington

Life and career

Overington was born in Melbourne, Victoria in 1970. One of three children in her family, she grew up in Melton, Victoria, and was educated at Melton South Primary School and Melton High School. She graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in journalism.

Overington began her journalism cadetship with The Melton Mail Express, and other titles in The Age Suburban Newspaper group, covering courts, local council, and school fetes. Melbourne businessman and editor, Alan Kohler, recruited Overington to write for The Age in 1993, where she became a sports writer, covering two Olympic and Paralympic games. Several of her pieces were selected for the Best Australian Sports Writing and Photography anthologies, published by Random House in the 1990s. She was awarded the Annita Keating Trophy for Female Journalism in Sport. So that Overington could take up a position as foreign correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, she and her young family, including twins born in 2000, moved to New York City in 2002. Her first book, Only in New York, published by Allen & Unwin in 2006, is a comedy based on her family's experiences in the United States.

While based in the States, Overington's work included an investigation into an Australian literary scandal involving Norma Khouri's book Forbidden Love. Together with Malcolm Knox, Overington won a Walkley Award for investigative journalism in 2004 for her research into the mysterious life of Jordanian-American-Australian author Norma Khouri. Both Overington and Knox appeared in Forbidden Lie$, the documentary by Anna Broinowski that won a Walkley Award and two Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.

Following her return to Australia in 2006, Overington took up a position as senior journalist with the News Limited newspaper The Australian. She uncovered the AWB scandal, in which AWB Limited (formerly the Australian Wheat Board), owned by the Australian Government, paid $290 million in kickbacks to the regime of Saddam Hussein, in contravention of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Humanitarian Program. Overington's book Kickback: Inside the Australian Wheat Board Scandal, released by Allen & Unwin in 2007, provided an account of the scandal.

During the 2007 federal election campaign, Overington made headlines for her conduct in the Wentworth electorate. She was reported to the Australian Electoral Commission for allegedly attempting to influence the direction of preferences from independent candidate Danielle Ecuyer towards Liberal candidate Malcolm Turnbull in return for a front-page story in The Australian. The Age said of the issue that "the idea of suggesting in the middle of a federal election campaign how a candidate should direct their preferences in exchange for a front page story clearly steps over the line from reporting the news to becoming a player in making the news." Media Watch revealed how Overington published untrue claims about the flow of preferences. A series of emails were published revealing Overington alternately flirting and strong-arming the Labor candidate for the seat, George Newhouse, who on election day at a polling place Overington was seen to abuse and slap. The Australian published an apology to Newhouse from Overington over the encounter in December 2007. After the election Overington took time off from The Australian.

Overington's first novel, Ghost Child was released in 2009 to both literary and popular acclaim. The book was short-listed for the Davitt Prize for Best Adult Crime Novel. Her second novel, I Came To Say Goodbye, was short-listed for Book of the Year and Fiction Book of the Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards in 2010. The novel Matilda is Missing, released in 2011, told the tale of a divorce custody case, through the eyes of a court-appointed psychologist.

In 2012, Overington was appointed associate editor of Australia's oldest and best-selling magazine, The Australian Women's Weekly, where she interviewed former Prime Minister Julia Gillard, screen actress Helen Mirren, comedian Ellen DeGeneres, industrialist Gina Rinehart and US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

In 2014, Overington's book Last Woman Hanged was released, documenting the results of Overington's five-year investigation into the conviction and execution of Louisa Collins in New South Wales in 1889. In the book Overington claims that Collins, who was tried four times for murder, suffered a miscarriage of justice and may well have been innocent. Overington linked the trial to Australian colonial history and to the early suffragette movement in Australia.

In March 2016, Overington was appointed an associate editor of The Australian. Her book The One Who Got Away, a psychological thriller set in California, was released in April 2016. Reviewer Riahn Smith, writing for News Corp Australia's The Weekly Times described the book as a neatly told page turner that inspires eager anticipation.

In 2017 a defamatory article written by Overington about actress Rebel Wilson for Women's Day was used as evidence in a law suit against the publisher Bauer Media. Justice John Dixon ruled that the extent of the defamation was “unprecedented in defamation litigation in this country”, and awarded Rebel Wilson $4,567,472 in damages. This was the largest defamation pay out in Australian history.

Overington has homes in Bondi, Australia and Santa Monica, California.

Awards and Prizes

Non-fiction

Fiction