AustLit

As an infant Enid travelled around the world under sail with her Orcadian sea-captain father, Captain Robert Moodie Heddle. Her mother, Ethel Olive Paterson, who was descended from two early Tasmanian families, used to write down stories Enid dictated to her. Both of her parents were interested in writing and in painting. She attended Sydney Girls' High School, and graduated from the University of Melbourne with an MA. She also gained a DipEd and MACE. She worked as a teacher at Woodlands CEGGS in South Australia 1927-8, 1931-33 and Ruyton, Kew, Vic, 1929-30, spending some time in England both teaching and investigating children's libraries. She joined the publishing firm, Longmans, in 1935, charged to assess the reception in Australia of Longman's and Collins' educational material, and worked as educational adviser to Longmans and Collins from 1935-1946. She ran the Australian office of Longmans during the war years but was replaced at the end of the war by an Englishman sent out as Manager. She was appointed Education Manager 1946-1960, and in this capacity she initiated, planned and published a range of textbooks for school and university study. Her work involved her in travelling around the country visiting schools and promoting the books. She was well-known for the series of Boomerang Books she edited, one of which, The Boomerang Book of Legendary Tales, won the 1958 Children's Book of the Year: Older Readers Award.

Moodie Heddle's name appeared on the title page of some 33 books. She wrote for young people as well as various non-fiction works including writings on literature, and wrote talks for the ABC. She published articles in Meanjin (1943, 1947, 1959) and Walkabout, and edited the Australian editions of The Poet's Way (1942-1994), Discovering Poetry (1956-1957) and A Galaxy of Poems Old and New (1962). She published a book on English poetry, Seasons of Man: poets of seven centuries (1973) and Story of a Vineyard, Chateau Tahbilk (1968).

Her brother, John Foster Moodie Heddle (1902-73), also a writer, wrote about adventures at sea.