Patricia Shaw was 52 years old before she began to write fiction. Among her many novels, most of which centre on the settlement of the Australian hinterland and which earned her the sobriquet of "Australia's Chronicler", the most widely known are River of the Sun (1991) and The Opal Seekers (1996).Much of Shaw's popularity and success came from overseas. Her books were extremely successful in Germany. She spent a considerable amount of time in Germany because of this and earned the nickname "The Frankfurt Poet". She has also written two works of non-fiction regarding Australia's era of settlement.
