Jill Shearer

Jill Shearer was born in Melbourne, but has spent most of her life in Brisbane. For many years she worked as Secretary to British and Japanese diplomats. From childhood she wrote poems and, later, children’s and adult’s short stories. An avid theatregoer, encouraged in the early 1970s by winning a regional play competition and having her play produced, she began focusing on drama. Now, more than twenty plays later, her works have been performed throughout Australia, New Zealand and on Broadway. They include The Kite, Nocturne, Catherine, The Foreman, The Boat, A Woman Like That, Echoes, Stephen, Comrade, Shimada, Georgia and The Family. She has also written for radio.

Shearer's many awards include the Monash Alexander Special Award, Utah Cairns Centenary Award, McGregor Literary Award and New South Wales Women Writers’ Award. She shared first prize in the 1997 Queensland Theatre Company’s Courier Mail Landen Dann Award for Georgia, which was produced by La Boite in 1999, receiving a Critics’ Matilda Award. She has a plaque at the entrance to the Myer Centre as part of Brisbane’s Literary Trail. Jill is a Patron of the Queensland Writers’ Centre.