Kay Murdock was one of eleven children. Growing up in what was then an isolated area, she was the only one of the eleven to have any secondary education, having just under three years at Kadina High School. Her first published work, 'The Gallant Horse', was published in the school magazine in about 1953. From the age of seventeen she contributed to the local paper, The Pioneer, but without her name being acknowledged. In her twenties she contributed to the New Idea, but only dreamed of 'writing'. Until 1996 her life was governed by her job, her family (four males) and caring for an elderly invalid parent, but in recent years she has been able to put more time and effort into her writing.
Although she has had little of her work published, her writing has been receiving recognition over the radio and in regional contests. Kay has also written Brutus Castle and Surrounding Bush Schools (1992), co-written and edited Blessed Brigid (1995) for a local church, and has contributed interviews and articles to the Yorke Peninsula Writers' Group publications, Top to Toe (1991) and Humour, History and Hearsay (1995). She was a Scout/Guide leader for twenty years, and because she could not find plays written specifically for small groups of young children to perform at breakup events, she wrote her own. In 1998 she won a SA Country Arts Trust Inaugural Grant for Regional Writers for a one-year mentorship with Bill ('Swampy') Marsh.
