"That was such an untruth because we did, in fact, live in Melbourne," the author confesses.

"But Jindera was so dear to my heart and so much a part of my childhood, it was where I felt happiest."

Indeed both Volk's parents came from Jindera and so many of their forebears.

She recalls, with great fondness, all the school holidays spent "dividing our time fairly" between both sets of grandparents - and the two Lutheran churches in Jindera!

Now the acclaimed author returns to Jindera on Thursday, April 18 for the launch of her second novel set in the township.

Finding Emma is the story of a now old woman, Emma Werner, who is domineering, cold and difficult to love.

But she has not always been so.

What happened to Magdalena Johanna Emma Scholz, the bright young woman she once was? And why does she still take flowers to the grave of her first love?

Emma turns to the journals she has kept for sixty years to rediscover her old self, and to reclaim her future.

Volk describes the novel as a work of "faction" - a genre that contains elements of fact but is fictional.

"It is based on true stories from old family tales - with a lot of embroidery," explains Volk who has always been a passionate and meticulous researcher.

"It is a fictional story based on skeletons of fact."

Fittingly, Volk will launch Finding Emma at the Jindera Pioneer Museum at 7pm on April 18; a place dedicated to preserving the rich heritage of the district and which stands as a monument to the early German settlers.

A second talk will take place at the Albury Library Museum on Saturday, April 20 from 11am to 12:30 pm.

The now Adelaide-based Volk describes her arrival to the region this week as a return to "wonderfully familiar territory".

"As I'm coming over the Jindera Gap, I recall my father teaching me to drive as a teenager and that I had my first accident on the Gap," she recalls.

"I skidded off the road and my dad, a wonderfully patient man, said to me, 'Well you won't do that again'."

But it's the many happy holidays spent with her grandparents that will forever cement Jindera's place in Volk's heart.

Of her paternal grandfather, the blacksmith Welzel, and evenings spent playing cards with her maternal grandfather (at Quartz Hill).

"I have vivid memories of him saying to me, 'Don't shuffle the spots off the cards girl!'"

Volk says while the Lutherans are not typically demonstrative, their feelings go deep.

"There's not a lot of florid emotion but they are very loving," she says.

Volk, who has published 13 books, hundreds of prize-winning poems and short stories, reflects that perhaps her love for Jindera truly runs in the blood.

In fact it was a sepia-toned print on the walls of her stairwell, "in the company of assorted parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts", that would prove the inspiration for her first novel set in the small Riverina town.

In Search of Anna was "loosely" based on the story of Anna Werner (one of Volk's forebears) and her perilous journey in 1889 from a small village in Germany to the colonies in search of her missing son.

Finding Emma is a "companion piece" to that first novel, Volk explains.

What this author and intrepid world traveller admires most about her ancestors - and the characters she has created in her books - is their strength of will.

"They kept resolutely going on with their lives no matter what happened to them," she says.

"Finding Emma is the story of a survivor: a woman who suffered but never wavered, whose strength of will and self-belief helped her endure and make a life for herself and her family in a small town in the Riverina."