Annie O'Dowd spent her early childhood in the vast open spaces of the Queensland outback. One of a noisy family of seven, her love of reading and drawing was fostered by isolation and the brown edge of the horizon. Later, Annie trained as an actor at the University of Southern Queensland, then retired to work as a speech and drama teacher. The seadogs were inspired by the sandy expanses of school holidays spent around Moreton Bay. Today Annie lives with her husband and three children in the sub-tropical confines of Brisbane suburbia. She loves pots of tea, long chats, and aspires to keep chooks.