Liz Harfull is passionate about telling the stories of rural and regional Australia. The bestselling author and popular speaker is particularly recognised for her work celebrating food and community history, and the stories of remarkable, everyday rural women.

Liz grew up on a small farm near Mount Gambier in South Australia, which has been in the family since the early 1860s. She trained as a journalist on the local newspaper and worked for metropolitan and specialist rural newspapers, before joining a leading national public relations consultancy specialising in agriculture and environmental management. Liz won several major national Golden Target awards from the Public Relations Institute of Australia for her work, and was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to travel overseas and investigate more effective ways to communicate information to farmers. Then in 2006 she walked away from being a co-owner/director of the business to focus on her writing and fulfil a childhood ambition.

Her first book was published by Wakefield Press in September 2008. A celebration of South Australian country shows and show cooks, The Blue Ribbon Cookbook became a surprise best-seller. Still in demand, it won an Australian prize in the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in 2009, before going on to be named runner-up in the popular best easy recipe book category in Paris, against more than 50 other contenders.

Liz followed this book with Women of the Land (Allen & Unwin 2012), Almost an Island: the Story of Robe (Wakefield Press 2013), The Australian Blue Ribbon Cookbook (Allen & Unwin 2014), City Girl Country Girl (Allen & Unwin 2016), Tried Tested and True (Allen & Unwin 2018), Guichen Bay and the Chinese Landings (Robe District Council 2017), Finding Steve’s Place (self-published 2018), The Women Who Changed Country Australia (Murdoch Books 2022) and A Farming Life (Allen & Unwin 2023).

Today Liz lives in the beautiful Adelaide Hills, juggling a busy writing career with travelling around Australia to visit the places and meet the people that inspire her writing.