Award-winning author Lynley Hood holds a MSc in Physiology and a LittD for 'published contributions of special excellence in literary, social and historical knowledge'. Her previous books include Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Minnie Dean: Her life and crimes. Lynley lives in Dunedin - five minutes' walk from the big house on a big section where she and her late husband Jim raised their three children. A rare visual disorder has given her common cause with the poor, the disabled and the elderly who use the buses and walk, and has brought her far more interesting conversations with total strangers than she ever had when she drove a car. Her passion for tilting at windmills remains undimmed.