Edel Wignell Edel Wignell i(A21212 works by)
Born: Established: 19 Oct 1936 Echuca, Echuca area, Goulburn - Campaspe area, Northern Victoria, Victoria, ; Died: Ceased: Jan 2023
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Edel Wignell, the youngest of six daughters, grew up on a sheep farm outside Echuca Victoria. She attended a rural school of fourteen pupils for eight years, then travelled by bus to Echuca High School until she had completed Matriculation (Year 12). At the age of 17, she left home and entered a three-year teacher training course at Toorak Teachers College, Melbourne. Wignell taught in city and country primary schools in Victoria and in England for eight years.

Wignell gave up teaching to try some of the arts: drawing, painting and gold and silversmithing. Gradually writing took over, and from 1979 she wrote full time for adults and children. Wignell published over 90 children's books - fiction, non-fiction and picturebooks - as well as a television serial and dozens of magazine articles, stories, verse and scripts (print and digital). In addition to her fiction-writing for children, Edel Wignell wrote extensively in the non-fiction and information book fields as well as readers in series for primary school students. She was one of six contributing authors to the Macmillan Australia Children's Encyclopedia. In 2011, Wignell was writing for a range of publications, including websites, and living in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges. In 2013, she gifted her writing earnings and copyright to the Australian Society of Authors, which funded a number of outputs includeing the annual Edel Wignell Mentorship (ceased 2018).

Most Referenced Works

Notes

  • For information about this author's works for children not included in AustLit, see Australian Children's Books by Marcie Muir and Kerry White (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1992-2004).

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Bilby Secrets Bilby : Secrets of an Australian Marsupial Sydney : Walker Books Australia , 2011 Z1792366 2011 single work picture book children's 'A beautiful narrative non-fiction book which follows the life of a bilby, an Australian marsupial. The story depicts a young bilby’s birth, habitat, behaviour and diet. When Baby Bilby is born, he’s as long as your little toe. He crawls into his mother’s warm pouch, where he feeds and grows. Baby Bilby is soon ready to leave the safety of the burrow. He follows his mother closely, sniffs the night air, and hops into the moonlight for his first desert adventure.' (From the publisher's website.)
2012 CBCA Book of the Year Awards Notable Book Eve Pownall Award
2012 shortlisted CBCA Book of the Year Awards Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
Deep-Frozen Fire 1994 single work short story crime
— Appears in: A Modern Woman and Other Crimes 1994; (p. 130-136)
1989 winner Viewpoint Short Story Competition (NSW)
Last amended 2 Feb 2023 09:04:46
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