The Story of Goldie Owl and the Three Wombatscomes from my early exposure to storytelling and my appreciation of native animals, which has been a life-long love affair. The natural fauna of Australia are unique to the world. Perhaps the storytelling from my earliest memory helped me to write as much as I did to defend the native species of my home country when, much later, I became a member of a conservation group and did all I could to protect those natural wonders.

I come from a time before there was television. Apart from reading, there were regular nights spent listening,...