Beginning
I spent a lot of time in the bush when I was a kid. I grew up in south-west Queensland on a sheep and cattle property and went to boarding school when I was eight and a half. Before that, my mother taught me by correspondence school.
My lessons arrived once a week down a dusty track, tossed off the back of a mail truck, in a faded canvas bag. If it rained, which was rare, the mail truck couldn't get down the boggy road, so school was called off, sometimes for weeks.
Fresh out of boarding school, I spent a year on an American Field Scholarship, living in one of New York's bedroom suburbs. My life changed!
When I came back to Australia, I fiddled around at university trying to work out what I wanted to do with my life. I studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree, fell in love, ran away to Melbourne, and then found myself studying a three year diploma course at the Victorian College of the Arts for a professional career in the theatre. With three other graduates, I founded one of Australia's first professional community theatres - WEST Theatre Company - in 1979. Creating and directing theatre became my passion for the next sixteen years.
Eight years into my theatre career I was searching for inspiration, a new way of seeing. I took up a part-time photography course. That's where I discovered writing.
I'd left it to the last moment to finish a roll of film for my photographic class Monday night. Early that morning I went to the Melbourne City Baths to swim laps. I tucked my camera under my arm just in case I found something to shoot at the same time. A pool full of older women doing exercises in the water caught my attention. Nervously, I asked if I could take some photos of them. Five years later, I emerged with my first book, PUT YOUR WHOLE SELF IN. I am forever grateful to these elders for challenging me to write, for sharing their stories and for teaching me to value my own.
I've now written seven books, five of them with Aboriginal storyteller Boori Monty Pryor. There were many Aboriginal people living where I grew up. I knew nothing of their culture or stories till much later in life.
Working with the Wurundjeri people, the traditional custodians of the land where I now live in Melbourne, and writing books with Boori and his family, is helping to educate me in the ways of my homeland, giving me a richer understanding of belonging in this country.
Like most writers, I have worked doing many other things. At various times in my life I have been: a dishwasher, a student, a barmaid, a juggler, a fire-eater, an actor, a theatre director, a photographer, a mother, still a mother, and a writer. I have travelled to many places all over Australia and to Papua New Guinea, Japan, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hong Kong, the Phillipines, USA, Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Greece...telling stories or collecting them for the many days I now spend at home writing.
Now read the UNAUTHORISED version!!
Books and Awards
PUT YOUR WHOLE SELF IN (Penguin Books) - Joint Winner, New South Wales State Literary Prize for non-fiction 1993; Winner, Braille & Talking Book Award 1993.
THE WAY OF THE BIRDS (Allen & Unwin) - Short-listed Wilderness Society Environment Award 1997; adapted for animation by Twenty/20 Production Company winning Best Film (Class C) Cinanima International Animated Film Festival Portugal 2000.
MAYBE TOMORROW with Boori Monty Pryor (Penguin Books) - Special commendation Human Rights Awards 1998; Short-listed Information Book, Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards 1999.
MY GIRRAGUNDJI with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin) -Winner, Book of the Year for Younger Readers, Children's Book Council Book of the Year Awards 1999; Short-listed, Best Children's Book, Queensland Premier's Literary Awards 1999; Commended, Best Designed Young Adult Book, Australian Publishers Association 1998.
THE BINNA BINNA MAN with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin) - Winner, Book of the Year, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Ethol Turner Prize for young people's literature, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Ethnic Affairs Commission Award, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards 2000; Winner, Book of the Year and author/narrator book, TDK Audio Book Awards 2000
NJUNJUL THE SUN with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin) Winner, The Kraft Foods Prize for Young Adult Fiction, Victorian Premiers Literary Awards 2002. Shortlisted for the Childrens Book Council of Australia awards 2003
FLYTRAP with Boori Monty Pryor (Allen & Unwin)
SISTER CHICK (Allen and Unwin)
