Peg Fraser has a PhD in History from Monash University. She is a writer and oral historian, and helped to develop the Victorian Bushfires Collection at Museum Victoria.

"Peg Fraser's extraordinary book transcends media cliché and illuminates what it meant to live through and beyond Black Saturday. Rich personal testimony and razor-sharp analysis evoke the many and varied ways that the people of Strathewen made sense of disaster." -- Professor Alistair Thomson, Monash University

"Peg Fraser has worked carefully and sympathetically with the people of Strathewen, a small settlement in the forested ranges just north-east of Melbourne where more than 10% of the population was killed and 80% of homes were destroyed on Black Saturday, 7 February 2009. Her purpose is not to reconstruct or dissect the experience of the fire itself but to tease out the meanings of the stories told by survivors, both for those who tell the stories and those who listen to them. It is wonderful to see such a thoughtful scholar taking on this difficult and demanding work." -- Professor Tom Griffiths, Australian National University

Peg Fraser teases out the meanings of the stories told by survivors, both for those who tell the stories and those who listen to them. It is wonderful to see such a thoughtful taking on of this difficult and demanding work. -- Tom Griffiths