Juliet Ludbrook came to Australia via Indonesia as a nine-year-old. Ludbrook is a historian, and has also worked as a teacher, radio writer, strawberry grower, museum educator, performer and occasional artist. Her non-fiction book Schoolship Kids of the Blue Funnel Line, published by Black Swan Press in 1999, examines the history of the school children who, schooled in Australia, would travel by ship to visit their families in South-East Asia on Blue Funnel's Singapore to Fremantle line. Ludbrook herself travelled on the Schoolships as a child to spend Christmas with her parents. Ludbrook's other works outside of AustLit's scope include The Big Q: A History of the Shire of Quairading (2003) and Until the Boys Return: A History of the Australian Women's Land Army 1942-1945.