Author Talk: Deep in the Forest by Erina Reddan

Erina Reddan thought she’d had a pretty ordinary childhood, but when she started writing her new book about a woman who discovers terrible secrets about The Sanctuary, she realised that she too had grown up in a kind of cult.

When Erina left home at seventeen, she joined a small commune of youth workers who ran self-esteem leadership camps, auspiced by the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until decades later when the Royal Commission revealed that her nearby town was one of the hot spots for paedophilia in Victoria that she saw just how harmful it was. And now she asks herself: was she one of the cult leaders?

Spend an afternoon with the Walkley Award-winning journalist and author Erina Reddan, who will explore power, cults, and the need to belong in her new book 'Deep in the Forest.'