Catherine Jinks

Catherine Jinks is the Australian author of more than thirty books for all ages. She has garnered many awards, including the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award (three times), the Victorian Premier’s Award, the Aurealis Award for Science Fiction, the Australian Ibby Award, and the Davitt Award for Crime Fiction. Her work has been published in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, the United States, Germany, Spain, France, Portugal, Poland and Russia. Catherine was born in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1963. She grew up in Papua New Guinea, where her father worked as a patrol officer. Her high-school years were spent in Sydney, NSW; in 2006, her alma mater, Ku-ring-gai High School, named its library after her. From 1982 to 1986, Catherine studied at the University of Sydney, graduating with an honours degree in medieval history. She then worked on Westpac Banking Corporation’s staff magazine for approximately seven years. In 1992 she married Peter Dockrill, a Canadian journalist; in 1993 she and her husband left Australia for a brief spell in Nova Scotia, where she began to write full time. They returned to Australia in 1994, and Catherine gave birth to her daughter Hannah in 1997. Since 1998, she and her family have been living in Leura, NSW. She has two brothers, but no pets. (Having been very unlucky with her daughter’s mice, which were perpetually dying of cancerous growths, she’s decided not to tempt fate again.) Like most people in Leura, she has become a slave to her garden, but not to the extent that she’ll buy rooting powder. Catherine has been writing books since she was eight years old. She doesn’t expect to stop writing them any time soon.