Di Morrissey is one of the most successful novelists of Australia with 24 best-selling novels and two children"s books published.
Background
Di Morrissey grew up in the remote surrounds of Pittwater, north of Sydney, Australia. As a child, she counted famous Australian actor Chips Rafferty as a close mentor and friend who helped provide for her and her mother after the death of her stepfather when she was a child and helped raise funds to send them overseas to California to live with family. Her mother, Kay Roberts, became Australia"s first female commercial television director working at Artransa Studios, Australian Film Commission and Film Australia.
Career
Although wanting to be a novelist since she was a young girl, Morissey started writing as a cadet on The Australian Women"s Weekly magazine at age 17. Later she worked as a journalist on Northcliffe Newspapers on London"s Fleet Street for several years. She is an environmentalist and activist.
All her novels are inspired by landscape with environmental, political and cultural issues woven into mass market popular fiction.
Following her support of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, she traveled to Burma (Myanmar) in 2011 and published her book The Golden Land in 2012. She has subsequently established The Golden Land Education Foundation and raises funds for the school she has established outside Mandalay.
In 2015 she launched The Manning Community News, a monthly newspaper covering local news in the Manning Valley, New South Wales.