In a video recorded from her home soon after the birth of her second child, McGahan says she hopes the nomination will bring her “radical story” of a life changed by God to new audiences.

“These are global awards and I’m with authors that I’ve admired and read for a very long time and it’s such a thrill that this small story, this small life, all the way from Australia – the story of a woman and her body and the God that redeemed both of those things – could find resonance in that type of a line-up is incredibly humbling to me,” she says.

“And it really has always been my hope that this book, because it is a radical story, could have a radical impact, could communicate the wildness of God, especially the God that pursues, the God that pursues those that are considered the least likely to fit into his kingdom.”

McGahan, who is best known for her work in Underbelly, Picnic at Hanging Rock and 100 Bloody Acres, says the impact the book has had has been amazing for her as a writer. She has heard stories “of people, men and women of many different ages, coming not only into a place of coming face to face with their own holy bodies but exploring this idea, sometimes for the first time, that there might be a God that loves them, that there might be a God that actually is interested enough to chase them down.

“And it really has always been my hope that this book, because it is a radical story, could have a radical impact, could communicate the wildness of God, especially the God that pursues, the God that pursues those that are considered the least likely to fit into his kingdom.”

“And so it’s my hope and my prayer that an opportunity like this, an honour like this, can stretch that message to an audience that I may not have dreamed about previously.”

Metanoia, which was published last year by Acorn Press, an imprint of Bible Society Australia, tells the story of McGahan’s “transformational change of heart or a repentance,” as she told Eternity last year.

“I thought it was an incredibly powerful, dynamic word to describe what I experienced when I had what was essentially a conversion experience and was reconciled to my body at the same time I was reconciled to God.

“I follow my body’s journey from the idea of [being] a marketplace – that is bought and sold, is merchandise, is used, or dominated or enslaved or injured, for the sake of others’ gain – to transforming into a sanctuary or temple, and other incarnations like a hearth or tent or bride. From having no worth, to being of extraordinary, priceless value.”

The winners of the ECPA Christian Book Award will be announced on May 5.