[9] In 2006 she was awarded a Doctorate of Creative Arts by the University of Technology, Sydney[10][11] under the supervision of Glenda Adams and Paula Hamilton.

Kate Grenville's reputation as a short story writer was made by the publication in 1984 of her collection Bearded Ladies.

The Idea of Perfection appeared in 2000 and won the Orange Prize for Fiction, at the time Britain's richest literary award.

Searching for The Secret River (2006) is a memoir about the research and writing of the novel, tracing the journey of the author's increasing awareness of how Australia's colonial past informs its present.

Based on the historical notebooks of Lieutenant William Dawes, it tells the story of the friendship between a soldier with the First Fleet and a young Gadigal girl.

Grenville's 2020 novel, A Room Made of Leaves, takes its inspiration from the life of the early Australian settler Elizabeth Macarthur.

[19] Restless Dolly Maunder, a novel based on the life of Grenville's grandmother, was published in 2023 and shortlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction.

[20] Grenville has been awarded fellowships from the International Association of University Women and from the Literary Arts Board of the Australia Council.

[16] Her novels have all been published in the UK and US as well as Australia and have been translated into many languages, including German, Swedish, French, Hebrew and Chinese.

The Secret River was made into a TV mini-series, and adapted (by Andrew Bovell) as a play that had sell-out runs at the Adelaide and Edinburgh Festivals.

The Secret River is set in early 19th-century Australia and is based on the story of one of Grenville's convict ancestors, Solomon Wiseman, a London boatman transported for theft.

[21] She takes that story as a means of exploring a wider theme: the dark legacy of colonialism, especially its impact on Australia's Aboriginal peoples.

Based on a historical source – the Gadigal-language notebooks of Lieutenant William Dawes – the novel tells the story of a unique friendship.

Grenville has used these fragments as the basis for a novel exploring how it might be possible for two people to reach across the gulfs of language and culture that separate them, and arrive at a relationship of mutual warmth and respect.

Sarah Thornhill grows up knowing nothing of the dark secret in her family's past, and when she has to confront it, the direction of her life and her thinking is changed.

The themes of the three books reach beyond Australia: all are widely read in other countries where colonialism has left a problematic legacy.

Grenville frequently does extensive research for her novels, often using historical or other sources as the starting-point for the work of the imagination.

In this book she recounts the difficulties she has personally experienced due to fragrances in the environment and discusses the latest research findings by Dr Anne Steinemann and others.