New York Times 10 Best Books of 2025
Washington Post 10 Best Books of 2025​
Los Angeles Times 15 Best Books of 2025 
Shortlisted, The Booker Prize 2024
Shortlisted, Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2024
"Extraordinary ... The fact that Stone Yard Devotional not only stays aloft but soars would seem to deny the laws of literary physics. The novel progresses like a diary of clipped, undated entries — some a few pages long, some only a few lines long — a mix of observations and reflections, pedestrian and cosmic, created with the apparent spontaneity and artlessness that only the most skillful writers can attain ... These disparate anecdotes and memories move with apparent randomness until suddenly you see that — checkmate — Wood has quietly trapped you in some shattering realization... a strange sense of engagement with these pages gives way to sheer gratitude for the chance to be in the presence of such restraint and wisdom."
- Ron Charles, Washington Post

“Wood’s depiction of a situation spiraling out of control is masterly… it is through the woman’s soul-searching and joined-up thinking that this remarkable novel derives its potency. The more the woman quests for meaning and understanding, the more invested we become in her. A light account of a journey into servitude and solitude soon transforms into a profound study of faith, grief, guilt, and forgiveness.”
- Malcolm Forbes, Washington Examiner

‘A beautiful, mature work that does not flinch from life.’
- Johanna Thomas-Corr, chief literary critic, Sunday Times UK

'Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional is remarkable - I'm still trying to figure out how she pulled it off. The best thing she's done.'
 ​- Tim Winton, author, Sydney Morning Herald
 
‘Totally compelling… nuns and the Australian outback are an unlikely formula for a page-turner, but I could not put it down… The narrator’s quiet reflections on life, and increasingly on death, add up to a satisfying account of an honest, questioning mind looking back over a lifetime’s decisions.’
- The Irish Examiner

'Wood’s generous capacity for sustained attention is a gift to readers ...  Stone Yard Devotional invites the kind of contemplation and pause that is rare in a world of constant distraction. Its slow pace is counterbalanced by the shafts of meaning that fall right through Wood’s lucid prose. Its stillness comes to feel less like a retreat and more like a radical practice, the soul-work of holding oneself accountable. If there is peace to be found here, it is hard won.'
​- Jennifer Mills, Australian Book Review
"An exquisite, wrenching novel ... Wood’s sedate, unpretentious prose [bends] sparingly, invitingly, into the outsider’s wry humor ... Activism, abdication, atonement, grace: In this novel no one of these paths is holier than another; Wood is more invested in noticing the human pursuit of holiness itself."
- Lauren Christenson, New York Times

'A quiet novel of immense power ... I have rarely been so absorbed, so persuaded by a novel ... Everything here – the way mice move, the way two women pass each other a confiding look, the way a hero can love the world but also be brusque and inconsiderate to those around them – it all rings true. It’s the story of a small group of people in a tiny town, but its resonance is global. This is a powerful, generous book.’
- Frank Cottrell Boyce, Guardian UK

'A book about what it means to be good: simply and with great humility, it asks the big questions, leaving the reader feeling kinder, more brave, enlarged.'
- Anne Enright, author 
​
'This magnificent, radical novel ... gripped me from the opening line to the very last.' 
- Helen Elliott, Sydney Morning Herald / The Age

'A stunning work of fiction from a major writer who keeps getting better.'
- Gretchen Shirm, The Australian 

'A beautiful and masterful book especially for its ability to dwell within the confusion and complexity of all that it is questioning, and for all of its quiet force.'
- Fiona Wright, Guardian Australia

'A book that extends and deepens Wood’s already remarkable achievements as a novelist in powerful and often profound ways.'
- James Bradley, The Saturday Paper 

​Click for Interviews and a summary of Stone Yard Devotional

Elements of The Writing Life - 2026 masterclass series​

Following the sellout series Elements of Fiction, covering aspects of writing on the page, Elements of the Writing Life now turns
to off-the-page process, exploring how to create a nourishing, fruitful environment in which you can begin, maintain and complete creative projects. 

Charlotte Wood and Emily Perkins - prizewinning Aotearoa NZ novelist, screenwriter and renowned teacher - once again join forces to create lively, original classes addressing real-life issues that affect all writers and artists. 

These 1-hour masterclass webinars offer practical advice, support and imaginative guidance born of our own experiences as writers over several decades of publishing. If you follow them 1-5 you’ll find a structure to support a project from beginning to end, but each class is also applicable to creative work - in any genre - at any stage of development.

Classes take place via Zoom, participants can ask questions during class, and all enrollees have six months' access to a video recording of the session together with further readings, links and resources on each topic. You can join live or simply watch whenever it's convenient.  Live classes take place once a month from March on Wednesday mornings Sydney time, noon NZ time. 

​TOPICS FOR 2026 ARE:
Attention: Writing begins and ends with close attention – a brain capacity that must be protected, practised and nurtured. We’ll kick off our new series looking at how to catch sparks and hone your ability to not only pay attention but sustain it for deep focus. 

Permission: Are you allowed to do that? Ethical questions around writing from life, story sovereignty, appropriation and attribution. We’ll show you how to fight corrosive self-censorship, exploring good and bad kinds of responsibility, irresponsibility, rebellion and disobedience.

Traction: Practical, pragmatic advice on how to keep at it through the long haul, creating and maintaining momentum. We will look at making the best use of the time you have, boundaries to help you get in the zone, and how to protect the work as it proceeds.

Faith: What to do when ‘why not write’ turns into ‘why’? Guidance on how to face the blank page when you’re wondering what the point of it is. We’ll talk about how to use both internal and external motivation, creative self-doubt versus second guessing.

Completion: When is the work finished? What happens next? This session looks at revision and redrafting, deadlines, perfectionism, feedback and editing. We’ll also provide strategies for when the work meets the world: good reviews, bad reviews, no reviews, prepping for promotion - and friends’ and family responses. 
Click here for comprehensive course description and enrolment link

Selected features & articles