Jill Blee

Jill Blee is a writer and historian. Her fascination with the past and particularly the role the Irish played in shaping Australia has led her to explore ways and means of telling this country’s story. Jill has called on her imagination to present our convict past and our immigrant history to both adults and children in the fiction she has written, and she has used her research skills to produce histories which are easy to read while at the same time being accurate and informative.

Born and educated in Ballarat in Western Victoria, Jill has lived, worked and studied in both Melbourne and Sydney before returning to Ballarat in 1999 to complete her PhD in History and write a novel about Irish Catholic Ballarat in the 19th Century called The Liberator's Birthday. She is actively involved in Ballarat Writers and the Ballarat Mechanics’ Institute, and she is a past board member of the Victorian Writers’ Centre. Jill also teaches writing at the Council of Adult Education in Melbourne