There is sad news in the world of literature today as I have heard of the passing away of the great Australian sci-fi Fantasy author Sara Douglass. She died this morning at 5am from Ovarian Cancer aged 54, after being diagnosed with in 2008.
Born Sara Warneke she and her family lived in Penola, South Australia with her parents raising sheep on a farm. She hated leaving the farm to go to school; and eventually to Adelaide. They moved to a decaying old Bluestone Victorian house in Malvern - a southern suburb - until she was packed off to Methodist Ladies College; which was a gentle, caring place, totally oblivious to the revolutions of the 'sixties.
She took up the family tradition of being a nurse for many years; and loathed it. After 17 years of being a registered nurse, she traveled to Europe and loved it! Then, returned to Australia and went to study a BA at the University of Adelaide. This BA changed her life completely. After she finished this, she did a PhD in early moderns (16th Century) English History and completed it in 1991. In 1992, she gave up nursing completely and took up a position as lecturer in medieval history in La Trobe University, Bendigo, which is in central Victoria, Australia. This job was the most stressful she have ever held.
So in an effort to find a way out of that job Sara began writing again, seriously (very seriously, this was the only thing she could think of to save her), wrote several really awful novels, a couple of not bad ones, and then one day, sat down to begin BattleAxe.
Since then, as of early 2005, Sara have written 15 novels. Sara moved from Bendigo in Victoria to the house of Nonsuch in Cornelian Bay in Tasmania. She discovered a passion or gardening and cats.
This is really sad news. I really love her work!
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