Anatomy of a Secret

Gerard McCann was born in the Western Australian wheatbelt town of Goomalling, and grew up in the Perth suburb of Cottesloe, the second of five boys in a staunch Catholic family. After school with the Jesuits, he studied Architecture at the Perth Technical College and the University of WA. He began writing poetry as an adolescent, but discovered the joy of writing when, at twenty-one, he backpacked around Europe on $5 a day. He has a long-held interest in heritage architecture and developed a practice based around this in Fremantle. He completed an Arts degree at UWA in the 1990s, majoring in Australian and American literature. On sabbatical around Europe in 2012, he re-immersed himself in non-fiction writing. On his return, he was compelled to write the story of his childhood, a memoir which developed into a major exploration of clerical sexual abuse and its lifelong consequences. He is currently writing short stories and continues to draw inspiration from his writing group. He lives with his life partner in Fremantle. They have two children and three grandchildren.