KATHY HELIDONIOTIS

ABOUT ME

Hi I'm Kathy and I'm a writer! I was born and grew up in Sydney and have spent most of my life in Sydney's South-West. I'm the oldest of three kids and have two younger sisters. My parents were both high school teachers and I became one too! I've been teaching English and History since 1993. I always wanted to be a writer though. My love of books started when I was really little and I was an avid reader of novels like Black Beauty and The Folk of the Faraway Tree by the time I was about seven. I wrote my first little book in grade three, around about the time I fell truly, madly and deeply in love with horses! I was very lucky because as a kid my family had a holiday house on the NSW South Coast and we spent virtually every weekend and school holiday there, Winter, Spring, Autumm or Summer! I loved it! And when I finally, after years of begging an pleading and hoping and dreaming, got a horse of my own I spent endless glorious days immersing myself in the three essential "R's" - reading, writing and riding! My first novel Totally Horse Mad was published in 2006. It was followed by Horse Mad Summer and a further six Horse Mad books (the Horse Mad series). I also wrote some books for very young children and for the education market. My latest book explores one of the greatest passions of my life - Aussie Rules Football! Most weekends in footy season I can be found behind goals cheering on my beloved GWS Giants. I cannot spend a single day without writing or ... or thinking about writing! I consider myself very lucky because writing books is it the best fun and the most rewarding job ever - I get to spend every day being eleven years old all over again and I can wear whatever I like to work .I still live in South-West Sydney with my wonderful husband, my three beautiful children, four sneaky rabbits, four squeaky guinea pigs, twelve noisy parrots and a lovely lazy bearded dragon called Sarah.