Colleen McCullough

COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH

Date of Birth: 1938
Birthplace: Wellington, New South Wales, Australia
Current Residence: Norfolk Island, in the South Pacific
Education: Holy Cross College, Woollahra; Sydney University; Institute of Child Health; London University.
Profession: Former teacher, journalist, bus driver in Australia's outback, and associate in research neurology department, Yale University, School of Internal Medicine, 1967-76)

I always wrote to please myself. I was a little snobby about it—that way I could write entirely as I wished. To write for publication, I thought, was to prostitute myself.
-Colleen McCullough, Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Vol. 46

She lifted her face for his kiss, never before so aware of what constituted Caesar's kiss because always before she had wanted it too badly to savor and dissect it. A perfect fusion of senses and spirit, she thought, and slid her arms about his neck. His skin was weathered, a little rough, and he smelled faintly of some sacrificial fire, ashes on a darkening hearth....
-Colleen McCullough,, Caesar's Women

Her [McCullough's] prose, even when stately, owes little to any formula; it is driven by a curiosity of mind, a caring for the subject, and some other great energy within the author that in turn...spurs the reader on.
-Eliot Fremont-Smith, Village Voice, March 28, 1977