S.C. Karakaltsas Explores Untold Histories Through Compelling and Courageous Storytelling
PHOTO: Author S.C. Karakaltsas, celebrated for her richly researched and emotionally powerful historical fiction, photographed in Melbourne.
Stories of War, Resilience, Motherhood, and the Forgotten
S.C. Karakaltsas discusses her journey from corporate life to historical fiction, sharing insights on research, character development, and the powerful themes that drive her emotionally resonant and socially conscious novels.
S.C. Karakaltsas is a storyteller of rare depth and quiet brilliance. With a pen guided by empathy, curiosity, and unflinching honesty, she transports readers to overlooked corners of history and breathes life into voices too often left in silence. Her novels—Climbing the Coconut Tree, A Perfect Stone, The Good Child, and Sugar Creek—are not just compelling narratives; they are rich explorations of human resilience set against vividly drawn landscapes scarred by war, injustice, and transformation.
Karakaltsas’s background—a childhood on a Queensland dairy farm, a career in the corporate world, and deep familial ties to stories of migration and survival—infuses her work with authenticity and emotional resonance. Whether she’s reconstructing a double murder on a remote Pacific island or giving voice to children displaced by the Greek Civil War, her prose never fails to illuminate the personal cost of global events.
In this candid and thoughtful interview, S.C. Karakaltsas reflects on the research that anchors her historical fiction, the characters who challenge her, and the thematic threads that connect her work—motherhood, identity, trauma, and the quiet power of perseverance. Readers of Novelist Post will find in her both a literary craftsman and a passionate advocate for the forgotten stories of our past.
Karakaltsas is a masterful writer who brings overlooked histories to life with emotional depth, vivid detail, and unwavering authenticity.
What initially drew you to writing historical fiction, particularly set around 1948?
I often say to people that I love reading historical fiction so much that I decided to write it too. But really it was all quite accidental.
My writing started because I’d found a story in old letters from my father to my grandmother. In 1948 he travelled from Australia to work at a little phosphate island in the Central Pacific where a double murder of two Australians occurred. When a letter from one of the murdered people turned up amongst my father’s letters, I knew I had to investigate it further. That provided the inspiration for Climbing the Coconut Tree.
Research of that time reminded me that the world post-war was tumultuous eg the rise of communism, the Cold war, the Greek Civil War. When I found out that children were evacuated en-masse in 1948 from Northern Greece coupled with the fact that my in-laws had been children there during that upheaval, I knew I wanted to highlight the plight of those children in fictional form which led to A Perfect Stone.
History regrettably repeats itself.
After a long career in the corporate world, what challenges did you face transitioning into full-time writing?
I had no real skills to write so it was quite a steep learning curve to learn to write, find the story and learn structure, plot, characterisation etc. I didn’t hesitate to ask for help and took myself off to various courses and most valuable of all was to join a writing group. It was there that I workshopped every chapter and got constructive feedback all the way through. With the support of fellow writers, I wrote, practiced, got feedback and kept writing. Learning a new skill takes time and patience and perseverance so I suppose that’s what I brought from the corporate world. I haven’t looked back.
“History regrettably repeats itself.” — S.C. Karakaltsas
Can you share a bit about your research process for historical settings in Climbing the Coconut Tree, A Perfect Stone and Sugar Creek?
I was a novice at first when it came to research and of course found the internet to be a great starting point. Climbing the Coconut Tree was set on Ocean Island, a tropical island in the central pacific which I’d wanted to visit so that I could immerse myself in the setting. To be honest, I thought there’d be a nice little resort and I could mix business with pleasure but no such luck. Ocean Island (now known as Banaba) is a two-day boat ride from Kiribati which is itself a struggling country. The island once bustling is now destitute with no infrastructure, no accommodation and a supply boat once a year, so my ambition to visit was dashed. Fortunately, my father had taken a lot of photos and together with his letters it gave me a very good picture of the setting.
I have been to Northern Greece so I had a sense of the landscape for A Perfect Stone. I was lucky to find that in my family of in-laws there was an aunt who had been taken as a child, an uncle who’d been a Partisan and other family members who were able to recount their experiences of the civil war as children. Oral accounts formed an important part of that story.
The setting for Sugar Creek and The Good Child was much easier being set in Australia in places which I could easily visit.
What themes do you find yourself repeatedly exploring across your novels?
The themes are varied with both Climbing the Coconut Tree and A Perfect Stone being somewhat coming of age novels, both of which are told from a male point of view. Whereas my later novels, The Good Child and Sugar Creek, are dual characters and dual timelines told from a female point of view. The issues of trauma, PTSD, colonialism, and resilience all have some degree of commonality. There is also a theme of motherhood running through each novel as well whether it’s an unmarried mother forced to give up their baby in the forties in Sugar Creek or miscarriage or challenge of having a baby.
I like to write about times and places which probably haven’t had the attention they deserve. Little has been written about phosphate mining on a central pacific island which was colonialised, or the impact of the Greek Civil War on not just Greek people but on the Macedonian population. I also profile environmental issues from the past affecting us in the present like the Agent Orange impact highlighted in Sugar Creek. Finally, I was incensed by corporate financial crime and greed coupled with financial abuse of the vulnerable in The Good Child.
“Learning a new skill takes time and patience and perseverance.” — S.C. Karakaltsas
Which of your characters has been the most difficult to write and why?
They all can be quite difficult and don’t always behave the way I originally intend. But that’s the beauty of how the character can take more control than we realise. Jim, in A Perfect Stone was an easy one as he had some very eccentric traits similar to my own father and an elderly friend. In The Good Child, Lucille has so much to contend with which made it difficult and emotional to write. Being a mother myself, I thought about the love a mother has for a child and how that love can be challenged in the face of a child not turning out the way you envisaged.
What advice would you give to aspiring authors trying to balance authenticity with compelling storytelling?
The research should be as wide and varied as possible. It can be viewing photos of the time which is relatively easy in the 20th century, or by written and oral texts, interviews with people, archival centres. With Climbing the Coconut Tree, I was able to view the police investigation in the Queensland State Archive centre, and the court case was sent to me from the Fiji National Archives. Relevant research can give authenticity and believability which makes for better storytelling.
“If it doesn’t belong, delete.” — S.C. Karakaltsas
How do you deal with weaving all that research into your novels?
A tutor told me to show don’t tell. That’s not how the story happened, I’d said. My tutor said sticking to the truth was hamstringing me to such an extent that I was dumping information. It’s easy to do that but not compelling to read.
Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story is what we’ve heard many times, but weaving the facts or imagining the facts into the narrative is what makes for a good story. Of course, it’s hard to do but satisfying when done well.
The problem with research is that we writers would love to put everything into our story whether it belongs or not. We’ve spent hours poring over facts and information which we’ve found interesting. And often you find yourself in a rabbit hole wondering how you can get a fascinating bit of information into your story only to find that it’s not relevant at all. I’ve deleted many thousands of words purely because I’ve realised it had no place and that’s the hard bit. So, my advice is if it doesn’t belong, delete.
