Elizabeth Riddell

Who was Elizabeth Riddell?

Elizabeth Riddell was an Australian poet and journalist.

Born in Napier, New Zealand, Elizabeth Richmond Riddell came to Australia in 1928 where she worked at Smith's Weekly and won a Walkley Award.

In 1935 she moved to England and during World War II worked for Ezra Norton at the The Daily Mirror, chiefly in New York. Her first short book of poems, The Untrammelled, was published in 1940. After the war she returned to Australia to continue working as a journalist, and in the 1960s became art critic and feature writer for The Australian. She was the first Walkley Award winner for The Australian, winning in 1968 and 1969 for 'Best Newspaper Feature Story'. Riddell's poetry won the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 1992 and the Patrick White Award in 1995.

She married Edward Neville 'Blue' Ted Greatorex in Sydney in 1935. The couple did not have children. Riddell died in 1998.