Krista Bell
Krista Bell was born in Sydney's eastern suburbs on 27th January 1950 and grew up in Rose Bay, where she attended the local school until the end of Grade 5. She then attended St Vincent's College, Potts Point.
When she was 15, Krista's family moved to Melbourne and Krista completed her secondary education at Catholic Ladies College in East Melbourne.
Krista won a scholarship for her tertiary education, choosing to attend Monash University where she studied languages: English, French and German.
Krista joined her parents in New York for a year in the early 1970's, before moving back to Sydney, where she spent the next 15 years. During this time, she owned a bookshop and married her husband, Douglas.
A move back to Melbourne followed and the Bell family (Ben, Damien and Henry, plus a menagerie of animals) have lived in the Malvern/Glen Iris area for almost twenty years.
Krista has been a published author since 1991 and has successfully published picture books, books for emerging readers and young teen novels.
Jezza, (Macmillan 1991) her picture book about a football playing dog with illustrations by Kym Lardner, launched Krista's career as an author.
She followed this with her four Top Shots titles about basketball (Allen & Unwin 1995 and 1996) before moving into an older readership with her next six novels: Read my Mind! (Lothian 2000); Get a Life! (Lothian 2001); No Regrets (Lothian 2002); Who Cares? (Lothian 2003); No Strings (Lothian 2004); Who Dares? (Lothian, 2005), and No Tears (Lothian, 2006). Krista's most recent title is Lofty's Mission (Lothian, 2008) a picture book illustrated by David Miller and launched at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. This fictional story, suitable for the whole of primary, is set in the early 1940's and follows the exploits of Lofty, a pigeon that has been bred by young Harley to be a champion racing pigeon. Harley is distraught when Lofty is taken from him to be trained as a messenger pigeon for the Australian army in New Guinea during World War II. Will Lofty ever come home?
During 2004, Krista was recognised as having "come of age" receiving an excellent review of No Strings in the Age literature pages; Who Cares? being awarded the Australian Family Therapists' Award for children's literature; and the film rights to her No Regrets, No Strings and No Tears trilogy being sold, with the screenplay being written in WA.
Krista is in negotiations for an animated film to be written and produced based on Lofty's Mission.
Equally at home speaking to several hundred students or conducting a workshop with a small number of keen writers, Krista imparts her passion for books and writing, whilst passing on valuable writing tips and techniques. Krista’s revolutionary concept BookSpeaktm is a unique adult book club held in school and public libraries to extend parents’ knowledge of children’s literature and to help create a reading culture in the local community at no cost to the school or library.
Krista is an Author Ambassador for the Children's Charity Network (www.childrenscharity.com.au) and the renowned MC of their annual awards dinner for young writers and artists. In 2007 she was appointed Victorian representative for the May Gibbs Children's Literature Trust National Selection Committee (www.maygibbs.org.au), which awards residential fellowships to Australian authors and illustrators, in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne. An oil portrait of Krista, entitled Read My Mind, has been painted by eminent Melbourne artist Regina Hona as her entry in the 2008 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Starting in June 2008 Krista is the on-air children's book reviewer for ABC Radio in Alice Springs every second Friday at 10.10am central time on Mornings with Barry Nicholls.
Krista's down-to-earth attitude, her sense of humour, her rapport with children, her storytelling skills and her ability to turn the most ordinary story into exciting Fibtion, combine to entice both students and adults into the magical world of books and writing. Krista gives inspiring and practical PD sessions for teachers and librarians, stimulating writing workshops for adults interested in writing for children, and is also highly recommended as an MC/ host for any literary or arts based event or festival.
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