About Me

Helen Menzies

Author & Editor

But first some history: like many kids of my generation – kids from families where no one had ever gone beyond high school – it was a teaching scholarship that allowed me to go to university. So, first career: teaching, at all levels from primary through to secondary to tertiary. Locations: Essendon Boys Tech in Melbourne, Ceduna Area School on the edge of the Nullabor, Johnson High School near Glasgow, Reading Advisory Centre in Adelaide, La Trobe University in Melbourne. Three Degrees, plus a Diploma in Teaching English as a Second Language. And a qualification as a Private Investigator. Next careers: union official, sports journalist on radio and in print (Rupert Murdoch’s first woman sports journalist!), Deputy Commissioner for Equal Opportunity in South Australia, Media Manager in the NSW public service.

Now I live on the idyllic Central Coast of NSW, in a village which is just what a village should be: filled with people who like each other, and more dogs than people, and chooks, and vegetable gardens, and water views front and back with a national park separating the inland waterway from the ocean.

Fiction writing: a career which began with winning The Sun short story competition in Melbourne – published in Festival and Other Stories. Then came a school textbook, Let’s Talk of Many Things. Then Favourite Runs, set in the Adelaide Parklands. Then The Survivors’ Affair (check out the reviews in the Books page), and in 2011, an adventure and mystery novel for young people, Ducks Crossing and the Secret Shadow. The sequel, Ducks Crossing and Thunderbolt Island appeared in 2012, and the final book in the series – Ducks Crossing and the Hungry Dingo – completed the trilogy in 2014.

Since then I have published novels and edited books of short stories written by participants at my twice-yearly Life Writing courses. For details, go to the Books page.