Ann Shead was apparently the daughter of F. Shead, who worked as an estate agent in Sydney before his retirement. She moved to Sydney from Adelaide with her family when she was five, and was educated at Abbotsleigh Girls' School, Wahroonga, from 1919 to 1922. Even at this time she had a passion for writing. Shead went to Adelaide for a holiday and found work there. She did some freelance writing for a newspaper and was offered a staff position as a social writer, but she rejected this in favour of a general reporting position on another paper. Her first big story was covering riots at the Port Adelaide docks, where an angry mob chased her up a ladder.
Shead worked on the Sydney Sun for a year, then went to Melbourne on a fortnight's holiday, but stayed for six years. She directed the ABC radio children's session in Victoria from 1933 to 1936. Shead was 'Isobel Ann' with the Argonauts Club. She wrote a serial, Sandy, for the children's Chatterbox Corner on a commercial radio station. Sandy was published as a book in 1935 and became a best-seller. In 1936 Shead went to England where she married the composer and pianist Charles Zwar (1911-1989), and worked for the BBC as a radio and television producer. She started the Children's Hour there and ran the This is Britain radio program during World War II.
