Yvonne Winer grew up on a farm in South Africa, and her writing is influenced by the wealth of stories and cultural diversity she had access to as a child. Arriving in Australia in 1961, she began writing when her three children were young.
Winer worked in Early Childhood Education at the University of Southern Queensland and took leave to complete her Doctor of Philosophy at Pretoria University in South Africa in the early 1990s. There she worked on literacy programs for rural South African children before returning to Australia in 1993. She has received a number of awards in the field of education, including the Kath Dickson Award for Excellence in Teaching from The Darling Downs Chapter of the Australian College of Education. Formerly the Head of Early Childhood at the University of Southern Queensland, Winer retired in 1997.
Winer has travelled in Mexico, Africa, Bali, Malaysia, Thailand, Canada and the USA and worked for UNICEF in Fiji. The cultures and landscapes she has visited have had an effect on her writing for children.
