Helen Brown is one of New Zealand’s widest read and longest running columnists. For 28 years she has shared her quirky perspective on life’s so-called ordinary events including births, deaths and marriages – not to mention the mysteries of supermarket queues, cat litter trays and living with teenagers.

She has written nine books, including a number one best seller. Her most recent book “Florascope” was released in USA and Canada last September after print runs in New Zealand and Australia.

Helen was a regular panelist on TVNZ’s Beauty and the Beast, an agony aunt on the children’s television show What Now? and has written television soap operas and radio current affairs. In 1991 she was awarded a Nuffield Press Fellowship to Cambridge University, UK.  Before moving with her husband Philip and three children to Melbourne nine years ago she was a full time feature writer for the Sunday Star Times in Auckland.

She wrote “A Slice of Banana Cake” in the bath where she gets most of her ideas.