About Krista

Krista Anne Blakeney Bell

I was born on 27 January 1950 at the War Memorial Hospital in Bondi Junction in Sydney's eastern suburbs. My brother Michael was already seven and a half. We lived in a flat in Birriga Road, Bellevue Hill until I was one. Then we moved to our own house in Wilberforce Avenue, Rose Bay. It didn't get renovated until I was about fourteen and my brother had graduated from university as an architect. But I always had my own room and two dogs in the backyard, Nipper and Spooky.

So I grew up in Rose Bay, going to the local school until the end of Grade 5. Then I went to St. Vincent's College, Potts Point, which meant taking the bus and walking through King's Cross twice a day going to and from school. Very daring! One morning The Beatles were waving from the verandah of the Sheraton Hotel where they were staying during their tour. I was thirteen and I was so excited. My best friend and I were late to class, but our teacher was thrilled about the Beatles staying so close to our school. She wanted to know all about them, so we didn't get into trouble!

I was lucky enough to be able to go horse riding each Saturday in Centennial Park, Randwick from the age of eight until I was fifteen and we moved to Melbourne to live for a few years. Then I bought my own horse, Rub al Khali (Khali for short), who was an anglo arab chestnut gelding with a white blaze and white socks. I kept him at the Pony Club in Lower Plenty. There's a housing estate there now! The open spaces have gone - that's progress.

We lived in Greythorn, part of North Balwyn and I did my final two years at school at C.L.C. which was opposite St. Patrick's Cathedral in East Melbourne. There's a brand new luxury hotel there now. I was dux of the school and won a scholarship to university. Everyone thought I'd go to Melbourne University but Monash was quite new and lots of really interesting people went there, so that's where I went. I studied languages mainly: English, French, and German. I loved the freedom of university life. No uniform! But I had to sell Khali so I could afford to buy an old car, Valerie!

In the early 1970's my parents moved to New York so I went too for a year and worked as my Dad's secretary. I was the only one who could read his writing and he preferred to write everything by hand rather than give dictation to a secretary. We shared an office with another father and daughter team and I was blown away by the fact that, unlike me, who had to type every letter on an IBM typewriter, Laurie just pushed a button on her incredible machine and it printed the same letter many times but addressed to different people. That was my first taste of the magic of computers!

After my New York experience, which also gave me access to places like Paris and London, I moved back to Sydney and eventually lived there for about fifteen years, mostly in bohemian Paddington. I had a bookshop for some years, but after I married Douglas we moved south!

'I just adore living in Melbourne... since 1984. The Bell family lived in Glen Iris for thirteen years until August 2006 when we moved even closer to the city. We now live in Kooyong (which means 'resting place') in a house called 'Baarrooka' (which means 'like a duck resting on water') and the city is an easy ten minutes away by train, which is literally over the road. Our two dogs, Phantom (blue heeler cross) and Storm (boarder collie/labrador cross) call it "the park house", because it's right near Kooyong Park and Rigetti Oval, all of which is leash-free - poochies' paradise!

I love books, music, gardening, Asian food, tennis, recycled clothing shops, holidays in Lorne & Noosa, making new friends (especially in the country towns I visit to do writing workshops with students), and Collingwood Football Club! To relax and think of more story ideas, I walk the dogs or paint with water colours, acrylics and pastels.

Here is a photo of Krista on a Chinese stone horse, in 2007.