Cirrus@Austlit

An experienced early-childhood teacher, adult literacy teacher and artist, Sheryl Gwyther began to write full-time in the area of children's fiction and non-fiction in 2000. In 2002, she was a recipient of an Australian Society of Authors' Mentorship and worked on the genesis of Secrets of Eromanga, her first novel, with author and mentor, Sue Gough. She has had several articles published - in Pearson Education's magazines Explore and Comet, and one in the Weekend Australian Review section. She was also awarded a prize in an Arts Network East Gippsland writing competition.

Gwyther maintains her contact with young people by working with teenagers at her local high school's Writers' Group. When she found her first fossil as a fifteen-year-old on a high school trip to Porcupine George in north-western Queensland it fired her imagination about prehistoric Australia. She has maintained her interest in fossils by doing volunteer work at the Queensland Museum's fossil preparation laboratory. She has also worked on the Elliot dinosaur fossil dig site where vital research for Secrets of Eromanga also happened.

In 2007 Gwyther was accepted as a client by prestigious London literary house PFD Agency. After receiving the funding through Arts Queensland in 2006, she spent a week at Varuna Writers House where she wrote under the direction of Peter Bishop. During this time, Gwyther completed the final chapters and re-edited the manuscript of her children's novel 'McAlpine & Macbeth.'

In addition to works individually indexed on AustLit, Gwyther has also contributed short stories and plays to The School Magazine (Australia), The Looking Glass Magazine (Ireland), and Junior Journal (New Zealand).