After completing her university course (majoring in French Literature) and teaching for one year, Elsbeth Edgar travelled overland from Katmandu to London. For four years she spent the winter months working in London and the summer months traveling in Europe. When she returned to Melbourne she taught English as a second language to the first wave of Vietnamese refugees for several years, before moving to Canberra to study for her Graduate Diploma in Librarianship. Elsbeth took time off to raise her children before returning to library work when her children were all at school. She has always written but, once she had children, began writing stories for them and in turn rediscovered her love of children's literature.