My rountry rhildhood
HEATHER ROSE
Heather is an acclaimed writer whose novels include The Museum of Modern Love and most recently Bruny. She grew up in Blackmans Bay, Tasmania.
“My parents built the first house on what was called the ‘new subdivision’ at the southern end of Blackmans Bay. ‘Village’ is too big a word — it was really a trail of shacks along the waterfront and back up into the low streets. I grew up in a house surrounded by paddocks. We had this roving cohort of children with incredible freedom.
“My mother, Dawn, was a secretary and personal assistant and my father, Kevin, a public servant. My mother was so imaginative — she would always be reading, sewing and cooking. She taught me to read by the time I was three, when my sister was
