One of my childhood best friends!

YVONNE MORRISON

Born in Auckland in 1972, Yvonne went to primary school in Auckland before the family moved to Wellington. After attending Karori Normal School and Tawa College, Yvonne went on to Victoria University and finally to Wellington College of Education.

Yvonne trained to be a meteorologist, but found the late-night shift work too hard. Then she became a scientist doing research for the university’s physics department. Now Yvonne is a primary school teacher.

Although she started writing stories about the family cats during her primary school years, she did not publish her first book until she was 25 and then it was a science book about microscopes.

Yvonne loved reading children’s books and had lots of ideas for stories spinning in her head but it was while travelling (she has visited 28 countries so far) that she finally found the time to write the ideas down. The way the characters act out scenes in Yvonne’s head often surprises her and she especially enjoys making the readers laugh.

Inspiration for A Kiwi Night Before Christmas came from knowing she would not be home for Christmas and feeling a bit nostalgic. As it turned out Yvonne had a wonderful, if very different, Christmas in the snow.

Inspiration for Down in the Forest came from Yvonne’s love of animals and her fondness for native New Zealand birds, insects and reptiles. She thought she would enjoy writing about them.

Yvonne’s advice to budding young authors is “Like any skill, writing takes practice. The more you write, the better you’ll become. Read a lot, and notice the way good writers write. Keep a diary of interesting things you notice about people, places or objects. Finally, your teachers are right – editing really is important”.

Current titles available:

A Kiwi Night Before Christmas 1-86943-564-8

Down in the Forest 1-86943-596-6

I was flipping thought a Schoolastic Books Catelogue that Nicole had brought home from school and noticed the name, came online and googled it. Yep, its her! I remember her doing alot of written stuff when we were at school. She was an only child and both her parents were College teachers. She had like 4 cats and assorted other animals.