About the author
Elizabeth is an award-winning Australian author. She began her working life as an occupational therapist but changed direction after attending a writing course in New York City, while living there with her husband and two children. After a shock diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, writing would provide her with a much-needed lifeline.
Elizabeth’s first book, Marzipan and Magnolias, depicting her complex relationship with her idiosyncratic mother, as well as the onset of MS, won the inaugural Finch Memoir Prize.
In her second book, Bounty: A Memoir of Friendship, MS and the Dog That Changed Everything, Elizabeth explores how illness reshapes identity and friendship, forcing her to rethink her own assumptions about disability and belonging.
Elizabeth lives in Sydney with her husband.
Bounty
When Libby’s lifelong friend, Emma, persuades her to adopt a strong-willed rescue dog named Bounty the intention is simple: help restore Libby’s fitness which has declined due to MS. But the unruly Bounty sets off a chain of events neither woman could have foreseen. Bounty steers a reluctant Libby into a hidden dog-park community where she finds her assumptions about disability and belonging are challenged.
As Emma reveals her own devastating diagnosis there is a gradual recalibration in their friendship as roles are reversed. Bounty is the story of enduring friendship and of one dog forcing the door open to connection, community and renewal.
“A testament to friendship, illness and the love of a good dog.”
— Astrid Edwards, Chair of Judges, 2025 Stella Prize
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