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Upbringing

Brinsmead's parents, Ken and May, were missionaries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church who left Sydney for Java (Indonesia) soon after World War I. They took their three small children, one of whom was seriously ill, with them. On their return her father and his brothers built homes in the isolated area of the Blue Mountains where Brinsmead was born. They farmed in this beautiful place while the children grew up. Brinsmead was the youngest and, for several years, was the only child at home as her siblings were at school in town.

The writer

Brinsmead was determined to be a writer from an early age but had very little formal education due to her home's remote location. Her mother gave her much of her early education at home around their kitchen table. After completing some primary schooling by correspondence she attended a small church high school at Wahroonga, Sydney. Eventually she left home in her mid-teen and became a teacher. She taught in various places around Australia, at a one-teacher school, as a governess in the far west of NSW and in the Derwent Valley of Tasmania. She undertook a correspondence course in journalism whilst in her thirties. She had married Reg Brinsmead, when 20 years of age and had two sons. Her husband owned and managed a pest control business active in three states. Finding time to write or study was a struggle for Brinsmead as she always was kept busy with clerical tasks and arranging employees' food and accommodation needs. In order to find a place to write undisturbed, she managed to escape in various ways, such as to a caravan in the back yard and to coffee shops.

Whilst living in Melbourne the ANZ bank near her home in the suburb of Nunawading allowed her to use a spare room on their premises. During her life she resided at various lengthy times in North Queensland, Melbourne, Tasmania, the West Australian outback, and in northern New South Wales. These places are all featured strongly in her novels.

Influences & inspiration

Her novels, taken from her experiences and travels around Australia, were written for children and young adults; however, they expressed many themes that have gained more prominence in today's world - such as the fragility and beauty of the environment and indigenous areas and the need for their conservation, the effect of ecological damage, the plight of refugees and societies disaffected and the human cost of resource development. As examples, Echo in the Wilderness, set on Lake Pedder on the eve of its destruction, chronicles the submergence and obliteration of the lake. Her 1983 book, I Will Not Say the Day Is Done (her only non-fiction/adult book) brought to life the struggle to save Lake Pedder. She was passionately consumed by the need to do something about environmental vandalism in Tasmania. Her book Isle of the Sea Horse, released in 1969, grew out of her concern about the ecological devastation to the Great Barrier Reef and, among other concerns, the plight of refugees. Her Longtime trilogy was set in, and inspired by her upbringing, in the Blue Mountains.

Recognition & later life

She was friends with fellow well known children's writers, Nance Donkin and Lu Rees and, later, provided advice & support to younger writer Nette Hilton, after she moved to Northern New South Wales in 1976. Brinsmead was twice the winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia's Book of the Year Award (for Pastures of the Blue Crane in 1965 and Longtime Passing in 1972), and winner of the Dame Mary Gilmore Medallion in 1965. Pastures of the Blue Crane was later made into a successful mini-series by ABC TV. Her fame from writing books allowed her to forge a separate but related career as a public speaker, speaking at conferences, seminars, meetings, school and public library events. Many of her over twenty books reached an international readership and were translated into Japanese, Italian, Czech, and German as well as being published in British, American and Australian editions.

In later life she retired to Terranora in northern NSW but even in her later years was an outspoken opponent of developers taking over the land. She stopped writing in the 1990s due to ill health. She had suffered from osteoporosis all her life.