Australia Remembers
Allison grew up on a farm in a small Victorian town, fostering her love of animals, collecting vegetables and shearing the sheep. Now based in Queensland, Allison is the author of Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers in the War to End All Wars and the children’s version, Anzac Sons: Five Brothers on the Western Front, which made the 2016 Australian Book Industry Awards longlist and was a CBCA notable book as well. Her interest in the service of her ancestors began when she was studying to become a teacher. She used a selection of the letters which her grandfather and his four brothers sent from the Western Front to complete an assignment. The dream to honour their courage and sacrifice was ignited.
Allison is a proud 2017 recipient of a May Gibbs Children’s Literature Trust Creative Time Fellowship, which resulted in the securing of a contract for her first historical novel for young adults, Follow After Me – released in 2019.
Allison has created a series of information books for children called Australia Remembers. The first of these – Australia Remembers: Anzac Day, Remembrance Day and War Memorials was released in October 2018. The second title, Customs and Traditions of the Australian Defence Force, was recently published in March 2021.
She has written other children’s books, Granny’s Place and Shearing Time, with another; I Wonder, being released in August 2021.
Allison now works full-time as a writer and presenter in schools.
South Australian-born Catherine Bauer is a journalist and awarded children’s writer who grew up in the suburbs of Adelaide. She has worked as a news and political journalist and features writer for various newspapers and publications, as a media and communications adviser and is now working with the State Theatre Company South Australia.
While she has written and published children’s plays and had two picture books published in 2018, Catherine lists her three sons as her life’s greatest work.
She grew up reading the classics that lined her parents’ well-stocked home library. She wrote, illustrated and submitted her first picture book at the age of eight and received a gently worded rejection letter – thus igniting her love for writing and determination to one day see her creative work in print.
Apart from joy and delight, Catherine aims for her stories to spark all or one of the following three reactions in readers: ‘that’s me’; ‘I wish that was me’ or ‘I’m glad that’s not me’.
Her parents were both great story tellers and among her favourites were the ones in which her father recounted wonderful stories about finding joy in small things, his enthralling adventures and often hardships of a childhood growing up in WWII Germany.
Following the first two titles in the series, Australia Remembers (Australia Remembers 1 with Allison Paterson, Australia Remembers 2 with Allison Paterson), Australia Remembers 3: Len Waters, Boundless and Born to Fly, has been released in 2021, and published by Big Sky Publishing.