
Hazel Edwards was born in Melbourne, qualified as a primary teacher and graduated from Monash University after studying while teaching fulltime.
Her first YA novel was General Store (1972). Her first child was born in the same year. Best known is her picture book series There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake (1980) illustrated by Deborah Niland. This toured nationally as the musical ‘Hippo! Hippo!’ in 2016 and will be returning in 2018.
Recipient of an 2001 Antarctic Fellowship, she researched on an expedition to Australia’s Casey Base in Antarctica and has published Antarctic themed stories in multi-media. Her works are published in the UK and USA and Asia and she was the first Nanjing International Cultural Exchange author ambassador with dual language projects.
She has written 200 books for adults and children including the recently controversial f2m: the boy within and Hijabi Girl. Co-written with Ryan Kennedy, YA novel f2m the boy within about transitioning from female to male is internationally available and listed with the 2011 White Ravens.
Other adult titles include Difficult Personalities and Writing a Non Boring Family History. Her works are published in Chinese, Korean, Finnish, Japanese, Russian, Braille and Auslan signing.
Hazel is a national Reading Ambassador for numerous literacy groups including YABBA and the Premiers’ Reading Challenge. Honors include ALMA nomination 2012,2011 and 2010 and the ASA medal (Australian Society of Authors) 2009.
Congratulations to Hazel for being awarded an OAM for service to Literature in the Queen's Birthday 2013 Honours List.
One of Australia’s foremost writers for young people, Hazel has recently stepped down as a director on the board of the Australian Society of Authors.
Not Just a Piece of Cake; Being an Author her unconventional memoir was released in 2015.
E-book literacy mysteries series and performance scripts are available from her website.
NEW! - Hazel has created Free, Downloadable reading and writing activities for students in Lockdown.
New, fun activities of varied lengths and types are added regularly - including Making a family story from photos (which take a while to sort).
Access at: Aspiring Writers
Testimonials

Not Just A Piece of Cake; Being An Author

Misfit

Hajabi Girl

There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake

Antarctica's Frozen Chosen

Professor Fred Hollows

Sir Edward Weary Dunlop

Plato the Platypus Plumber

Fake ID

Astrid; The Mind Reading Chook

Astrid; Grand Final

False Bottom
Victoria
Speaker type
- Author
- Educational consultant
Audience
- Prep - Year 2
- Year 3-6
- Year 7-9
Links
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Don't forget to check out the Touring Speakers page as we have lots of speakers on the move this year.
We look forward to hearing from you soon!
New Releases See all books
Touring Speakers See all tour dates
| Speaker | Location | Tour dates | Book now |
|---|---|---|---|
Sri Lanka | 01 Jun - 14 Jun 2026 | ||
Brisbane | Sunshine Coast | 10 Jun - 11 Jun 2026 | ||
Sydney | 12 Jun - 12 Jun 2026 | ||
Perth | 26 Jun - 26 Jun 2026 | ||
Brisbane | 01 Jul - 31 Aug 2026 |
What people are saying
Jenny Wang helped us kick off a week long celebration of learning as part of Catholic Week activities at Jubilee Primary. With Jenny's expertise, all students successfully created their own manga characters, inspiring some students to submit art work for the school's mini Art Show. Jenny's own passion for using animation to spread positive community messages could be a great starter for students building their own community message.
Just quickly checking in to say thank you SO much for taking the time and effort to connect with us on Wednesday. The students loved it! You have a great way of speaking to children at their level, so I hope they’ll always have the benefit of being part of your life’s work.
We had a lovely Literature Event yesterday. Randa was fantastic, her sessions were thought-provoking, everything went smoothly and we have had great feedback from the staff and students. We are now thinking about next year and would love to have Randa back. We had a great time, thanks so much.
Dannika is great, organised and well prepared. The boys were so engaged with her presentation
Megan came to my school to run workshops during a Book Fair. She spent time with both gifted and talented students and students of mixed ability. She was organised, engaging and respectful during her presentations to students, and had them writing beautiful narratives. Megan was able to adjust her workshop according to the students’ interest and abilities in the class, and quickly gained a positive rapport with students. After the workshop, students reported that Megan was a lot of fun and had [...]
I am always impressed with the prompt service whenever I ask for recommendations for authors to come to our school. I have used this agency for many years and am very happy with the professionalism displayed.
Inspirational, extremely open to students questions, flexible to school routine, excellent speaker.
Sue exceeded expectations. She was brilliant and received great feedback from our participants. Thank you for your service. It is great to work with such an organised team.
Samantha Smith was the first author to visit Molesworth Street Kindergarten, just as we had finished setting up our new worm farm. Around that time, we discovered her delightful book Harriet's Hungry Worms. We began reading it regularly to the children, helping them learn about worms and how feeding them can recycle organic waste. Sam’s visit was truly special—she was so accommodating, and her natural connection with the children shined throughout. We were amazed at how she included visuals, sin [...]
Richard was the utmost professional and helped the students immensely prepare their thinking and ideas for narrative writing. We would definitely recommend Richard to other Schools and will be looking to book him again into the future.
The students really enjoyed meeting Lucia. She was very engaging and easy to understand. The students liked participating in the drawing of interesting cats and feeling the collages she had made. I loved what the illustrator discussed and the Year 6's really were engaged and found the content of her talk interesting.
