Virginia Lowe

Virginia Lowe kept a parent-observer diary of her daughter and son's book contacts and responses, from the birth of the elder, until the younger was an adolescent (about 5000 handwritten pages). She used this as the basis for her PhD thesis "Is This a Real Story?" (Monash University 1997) and for her book "Stories, Pictures and Reality: Two Children Tell". She has also mined the diary extensively to write academic papers over many years, and has three chapters published in academic collections (on Beatrix Potter, poetry and very young children and books). She is interested in children's understanding of reality and pretence in stories, and is keen to see that young children are not underestimated.

Since her retirement from lecturing at university, she has run a manuscript assessment agency Create a Kids' Book (www.createakidsbook.com.au), helping over forty authors and illustrators to be published.