In an entry in a teachers' guide to a reader series, Mary O'Neil comments: 'At four years and a bit, I began to love words, stories and poems in a little country school, Bringalbert South, near Edenhope in western Victoria...I am a Sister of Mercy...I wrote school plays, which were performed, four lyrics in New Songs of Australia and 'Jacaranda Tree' was put to music and sung on Australia Day, over ABC Radio. The Pandas (Puffin) was also published in the Chinese Sydney Herald. Since 1979, my poems for adults have been published in magazines and newspapers, including Canberra Times, Herald-Sun and Habitat, and also in USA. I live right beside the beautful Fitzroy Gardens in East Melbourne.'
