“Partly because there are a lot of quiet women in many areas, quiet heroes that nobody has ever heard about otherwise,” Hazel said.
“And that is why, as a writer, I like to focus on the subject matter of some of my stories of interesting people who are perhaps modest and you’ve never heard about them otherwise.
“And that is what International Women’s Day should be about.
“I think the theme of this year is inclusion.
“And I am all with that because I think we should respect whatever rights or choices other women have made, never put them down, encourage them.”
Hazel has just published a quirky memoir, Not Just a Piece of Cake, taking the reader behind her books and her intellectual and physical risk-taking as a long-term author with a family.
Hazel is most well-known for the book, There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake.
However, she has an extensive catalogue of published books including children’s picture books, easy-reading books, young adult fiction, adventure writing, how-to-write books and adult mysteries.
“Writers never have to retire, they keep doing all sorts of interesting things,” Hazel said.
“In other areas, you have to change where you put your time, but the privilege of being a writer is that you change the content you write about and develop new skills.
“I have a very supportive family, as far as they have been readers of books, suppliers of ideas, and stuff like that, I’ve totally exploited all of them.
Over the years, Hazel has mentored many inspiring authors, who have affectionately become known as her ‘Hazelnuts’.
“They are predominantly women, there are some men, and they are the ones who I have mentored with their writing.
“In some cases, it was writing a memoir or a story about something they thought was important, and it became a tradition for them to call themselves Hazelnuts.
“There are several 100s of them now; they jokingly call themselves that on my Facebook group.
“They range from things like one guy wrote about the prisoner of war camp at Rowville, the history of that and the mystery associated with it.
“I’ve got others who have written about quiet members of their family who did significant things that other people didn’t know about, so they wrote about them.
“I have a Hazelnuts shelf in my study now for all the books.”
Hazel Edwards OAM will be one of two speakers on International Women’s Day, with the other being Echuca writer Karen Mills at the Echuca Library on Friday, March 8, 2024, at 2pm.
Bookings are essential for this free event on 03 5481 2400.
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