AustLit

Elizabeth Stead is the niece of writer, Christina Stead (q.v.) and the daughter of Frederick Huxley Stead (1911-1938) and his wife, Mavis nee Woolf. Frederick Huxley was one of six children that David George Stead had with his second wife, Ada nee Gibbins; Christina Stead was the only child of his first wife, Ellen nee Butters. The father of Elizabeth Stead died in a traffic accident when she was six years old and the family went to live at Watson's Bay, New South Wales, near the Stead relatives. Elizabeth Stead remembers her mother being emotionally unstable, addicted to prescription drugs and committing suicide after deep sleep treatment at Chelmsford. She also alleges sexual abuse by three of her uncles.

Despite this difficult childhood, Elizabeth Stead was inspired by her grandfather, David George Stead (q.v.), a naturalist and conservationist, who she loved and defends against Christina Stead's fictional portrayal in The Man Who Loved Children with her own novel, The Fishcastle. She was inspired by his powers of imagination and by her aunt, Cathrine, who introduced Stead to her world of the dance and music.

Elizabeth Stead started writing when a child, influenced by 'Jason and the Argonauts' and its serial, 'The Search for the Golden Boomerang.' She called her first childhood book 'The Search for the Blue Opal'. She left school at thirteen, took a job as a filing clerk then became a model living a vibrant social life in Sydney, New South Wales. Stead also acted and wrote for the theatre, danced, travelled and painted. She lived for three years on a tropical island near the equator with her family. Her first novel was published when she was sixty. Stead has published many short stories as well as her novels.

(Source: Anne Lim, 'Foreword - Good Times, Bad Times', The Australian Magazine (14 January 2006): 12; Hazel Rowley Christina Stead: A Biography (1993): 15).