A poet and an environmental and peace activist, Venie Holmgren grew up in Western Australia, but later settled in a small coastal village of Southern New South Wales. 'She has been by turn, sometimes concurrently, dutiful daughter, shop assistant, housewife and mother, unpaid political organiser - frequently for unpopular causes - professional charlady, bookshop proprietor, library aide and gipsy, having spent almost three years wandering alone around Australia in a campervan' (from an author note in Among the Sepias, 1999).
