Desert Queen

Susanna de Vries is an international author and former lecturer at the Queensland University of Technology. She writes full-time but also lectures to branches of the Australian Fine and Decorative Art Society. She speaks fluent Spanish and French and has lived and worked in London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Florence, Barcelona and Sydney but now lives in Brisbane and has nine grandchildren. Susanna's fourteen books have won her literary awards in Ireland and Britain, an Order of Australia for services to literature and a Winston Churchill Fellowship.

Beverley Dunn is one of Australia's most distinguished actresses. Her acclaimed work in theatre, television, radio and film has taken her all over Australia and overseas. Among her many television credits are two years in The Flying Doctors, and she also toured Australia for hit stage productions of Hotel Sorrento and A Happy and Holy Occasion, which won her a Green Room Award in 1993. She was also the narrator of White Eye by Blanche d'Alpuget, the 1994 TDK Australian Audio Book of the Year, and White Coolies by Betty Jeffrey, which was shortlisted at the Audie awards and won the Golden Ears award.