and Nancy Business[1][2][3][4] McDonald was born in Balclutha, New Zealand and grew up on a sheep and venison farm in South Otago.
[2][5] R.W.R McDonald wrote the first draft of The Nancys while at Faber Academy, Melbourne under the tutelage of award winning authors Toni Jordan and Paddy O'Reilly.
[6][7] In 2017, The Nancys was highly commended in Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award, this lead him to signing with literary agent, Grace Heifetz.
[15] McDonald was a contributor to the 2022 crime fiction anthology, Dark Deeds Down Under: A Crime & Thriller Anthology with Nancys Undercover, a short story set one year after The Nancys [16] R.W.R McDonald was a judge in the 2022 VPLA Unpublished Awards.
[17] In September 2023, McDonald’s first picture book, Happy Millionth Birthday, illustrated by Alexandra Colombo, published by Larrikin House [18] The novel centres around an eleven year old school girl, Tippy Chan and her babysitting Uncle Pike and his boyfriend Devon, who together form a secret amateur detective club "The Nancys" to try and solve Tippy's teacher's murder in her small town over one summer.