Kate Shayler
non-fiction, biography, australian history
Kate Shayler, hailed as 'Australia's own Frank McCourt' (Sally Loane, ABC Radio) has written three books. The Long Way Home details her life in Burnside Homes for Children during the 1950s and 60s. After many requests from readers, Kate wrote A Tuesday Thing to explain what happened next. It is described as a courageously honest book.
After leaving Burnside Homes Kate became an insurance clerk, a bored insurance clerk and then an HSC student. She attended Macquarie University where she studied Early Childhood and became a teacher when she finished her degree. Teaching was never boring. It was rewarding, challenging, interesting, enriching and fun.
In 1996 Kate met Dave, the first homes kid she'd encountered in the thirty years since she had left, and her life changed radically. She retired from teaching after an unexpected inheritance and began writing full time.
Kate and Dave live in the Blue Mountains and they share an interest in bush care, writing, their gardens and teaching Kate's 'grandsons' to fly.
