Change agent

Alumna an author with something to say

Never stop learning. This is a Linda Brooks motto and reveals a defining characteristic: persistence. It helped her finish nursing studies at Sydney Adventist Hospital. Then, as a single mother, she enrolled in the Business Studies Certificate—Audio Secretarial course at Avondale as preparation for possible work as a medical receptionist. Other qualifications have followed: a Diploma of Nursing Administration, a certificate in office management, and now a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in creative writing, for which Linda received a scholarship. Her thesis examines the effectiveness of verse novel to articulate silence, trauma and grief in post-World War II Australia. “Homework is forever if you want a better life, fulfil potential and create change,” she says.

The popularity of Linda’s writing—more than a dozen short stories featured on the cross-platform social history series The Making of Modern Australia—led to the publication of her first book, A Curious & Inelegant Childhood. She’s won awards for other published pieces, is a prolific self-publisher—with more than 20 titles—and runs a publishing service business. But her second book, I’m Not Broken, I’m Just Different, is perhaps her most important contribution. It explores Linda’s life with and advocacy for her son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome. She interviewed psychiatrists, psychologists, counsellors and teachers, and undertook archival research and data analysis. The then Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission used her comprehensive documentation as an educational tool. Lobbying the NSW Department of Education to improve services to students on the spectrum has been “more fun than a cause should be.” Linda is now exploring coercive control in domestic violence.

When not writing, Linda is painting.

The Class of 1981 honours Linda Brooks for using the power of words to explore the complexity of the human condition.