Award-winning author, Marlene J Bennett's (Te Ati Awa) autobiography begins with a vivd picture of backblocks childhood in the 1940s and 50s. Marlene had a semi-nomadic life because her father worked in sawmills. Born in 1938, Marlen attended fifteen different schools. Marlene's account of her adult life is equally entertaining when she and her husband abandoned their plans in 1987 to retire in Auckland and decided, on impulse, to buy an old cottage in Blackball, West Coast of New Zealand and began writing full-time. In 2003, Marlene was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.