Meaghan Wilson Anastasios is a reformed archaeologist, historian, university lecturer, and art auctioneer with a PhD in art history and cultural economics (yes, really) who has segued her chequered past into a career as an author and screenwriter. With highlights including exploring a Turkish ghost town with Russell Crowe, and making Sam Neill eat walrus meat, she hasn’t had cause to regret her career change.
Meaghan’s latest novel, Sunday Reilly is All Out of F*cks to Give, is a funny, sweary holiday read about a woman of a certain age who upends her life and heads off to the Greek Islands. It’s a departure for Meaghan because she’s also all out of f*cks to give. Her other books include the best-selling adaptation of Russell Crowe’s directorial debut, The Water Diviner; her novels, The Honourable Thief and The Emerald Tablet; and the bestselling non-fiction book, The Pacific: In the Footsteps of Captain Cook.
Her career as a novelist has been a long time coming. After some time as an archaeologist digging up the Mediterranean and Middle East, Meaghan got herself a Master of Art Curatorship and a PhD in art history and cultural economics and was recruited by the University of Melbourne to become a lecturer. Meaghan’s academic career was founded on extensive real-world experience from time spent working at major public art institutions including the National Gallery of Victoria and Artbank, and in management-level positions at commercial art businesses, including a commercial gallery and an art auction business.
But the urge to create was irresistible, so Meaghan put her academic career on the backburner, and launched herself into the world of words. Today, Meaghan is also a scriptwriter for film and TV and an accredited member of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). Loot, a documentary series about the black market in stolen antiquities that Meaghan created, wrote and produced, was broadcast internationally. A second international series she created and produced, Rush!, screened in 2024. Meaghan has many hours of television under her belt, including the Logie-nominated series, The Pacific in the Wake of Captain Cook with Sam Neill for Fox, The Homes that Built Australia and Yakka: Australia at Work for ABC TV, and Hitler’s Secret Sex Life for Netflix.
Meaghan has also managed to attract tens of thousands of followers on Threads and Substack, who come for her sweary takes on world events, and stay for occasional thoughtful pieces about culture, society, history, and politics.
Meaghan lives in Melbourne with her screenwriter husband, putting paid to the conventional wisdom that creative couples are a recipe for disaster. With two children who look to be joining them on the professional creative roller-coaster, plus a dog and three cats including the famous Aurora, life in Meaghan’s household is never dull.
