Hazel Edwards OAM

Author/ Educator/Speaker

Best known for the 'There's a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake' (1980) series, which was adapted for screen and stage and illustrated by Deborah Niland, Hazel Edwards writes across genres, media, and age groups.

Author-educator Hazel Edwards M.Ed, B.A. Dip Ed, T.P.T.C., qualified as a primary teacher and graduated from Monash University after studying while teaching full-time.

Her first Y.A. novel' General Store (1972), is in the Untapped Australian Literary Heritage Project. Coping successfully with being different, cultural diversity and social justice using humour are common themes.

Her adult nonfiction includes 'Difficult Personalities' and 'Writing a Non-Boring Family History'. Her works are published in Chinese, Korean, Finnish, Japanese, Russian, Braille, Auslan signing, and Dylexie font.

 Hazel Edwards has over 200 books plus translations & adaptations. Children's theatre is her love.

 'f2m: The Boy Within' with transguy Ryan Kennedy was the first Y.A. coming-of-age novel co-written by an FTM and also typified cultural collaboration by invitation.

Keen on participant-observation research, Hazel received the 2001 Australian Antarctic Fellowship, went on an expedition to Casey Base, and has published Antarctic-themed stories.

She was the first Nanjing International Cultural Exchange author ambassador, working on dual-language projects and later at international schools such as Balikpapan. She is also a Reading Ambassador for literacy, including Y.A.B.B.A. and Dolly Parton Imagination Library. 

Honours include international ALMA (Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award) nominations in 2012, 2011, and 2010 and the A.S.A. Medal (Australian Society of Authors) in 2009. In 2013, she was awarded an O.A.M. for services to Literature and, in 2017, the Y.A.B.B.A. Graham Davey Citation.

Also Patron of the Society of Women Writers (Vic) and a director on the board of the Australian Society of Authors for 20 years.

'Not Just a Piece of Cake: Being an Author' is her memoir based on anecdultery as a creative structure.

'Anecdultery' is a Hazel original term for story as she takes the reader behind the books. Adult mystery series with asexual Quinn, her  'celebrant sleuth' is being scripted.

Despite Lockdown challenges, innovative Larrikin Puppets premiered 'Hijabi Girl the Musical' in 2022

Widowed mid-pandemic, Hazel has four grandsons for whom she writes a story each birthday. Those whom she has mentored to publication are affectionately known as 'Hazelnuts'.

She mentors those wishing to tell the stories of their extraordinary but so-called- ordinary relatives or colleagues, the quiet heroes and role models who have solved community problems or invented new ways of improving the lives of others.