ELIZA HENRY–JONES

Despite publishing three books in as many years, penning a story about life on her Yarra Valley farm on page 16 was a new experience for this novelist.

“Writing about myself was definitely outside my comfort zone,” Eliza says. “Fictional characters are much less confronting!” This Melbourne-raised writer feels at home in the country thanks to regular visits to rural relatives when she was young. “I’d regularly find myself trundling around a paddock on a tractor, feeding lucerne to my grandpa’s Angus cattle or chasing feral kittens around my great-uncle’s hay sheds.” Nowadays, Eliza says her writing career offers her the flexibility to enjoy farm life to the full. “I adore being able to shape my days around the weather so I can ride my horses and work on the farm when the weather is being kind and then huddle inside to work when it’s ferocious.”