biography
Posie Graeme-Evans was born in England. Her family often moved because her father was a pilot in the Royal Air Force and for this reason Posie spent her childhood all around the world. Her father Frank was born in Tasmania and her mother, Eleanor, in Melbourne, Victoria. As a result she feels a special connection with Australia from her parents .
Posie's s mother, Eleanor Graeme-Evans, was an author. By the time Eleanor was 26, she had published three novels in London. Her final novel " From Sarah to Sara " was published when she was 87 years old. Posie's mother passed on both her passion of writing and her great love of people.
Although it was not easy for a child to move and change school so often , P osie herself says that this prepared her well for the work as a writer . She learned to observe human behaviour and being an outsider equipped her well to enjoy all kinds of people and circumstances .
When she was a child she loved the fantasy world she found in fairy tales and books by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien as well. In time, she looks forward to writing children's books as well.
After University in the early 70's - where Posie met a formative influence in her life, Professor Ralph Elliott, a great scholar of Medieval and Norse literature - Posie began to work in television. Her first job was in New Zealand , working for TVNZ . She and her first husband lived in Auckland with her 3 year old daughter , Emma . Her first jobs including being a cable-dragger in the studio and also, a stand-by Prop mistress. Later, back in Australia, she worked as an assistant editor at the Tasmanian Film Corporation . She gained experience, too, in scripting . All her early jobs were a great foundation for understanding how sound and pictures (and words!) fit together .
Posie went on to work with Australia's major public broadcaster, ABC . Starting out making children's programs in the Education area, she then became a director and field producer /director of news and Current Affairs programs. Further experience in everything from Sports directing to Religious programs finally led her towards drama.
After being selected as one of eight people to be on a training course for future Executive producers, she was selected as one of 5 directors on the ABC's break-through rock drama series "Sweet and Sour", produced by "The Piano" 's Jan Chapman. Another break followed when she was offered the job of producing the series Grundy series, "Sons and Daughters ". More television series followed including "Raffertys Rules" - a much loved Australian programme
In the late eighties, Posie was asked to join Southern Star, a large independent production company in Australia. There she created and produced her first drama series for children and teenagers, "Elly and Jools". Then in 1990, Posie and her husband founded their own production company, Millennium Pictures in Sydney, Australia where, initially, they specialised in children's drama, producing two series of "The Miraculous Mellops " and Posie's self-created "Mirror Mirror " - both series of which was shot in New Zealand in co-production with Wellington's Gibson Group.
In 1996 Posie produced the pilot telemovie of "McLeod's Daughters" for Australia's Nine network. The tele- movie achieved the the highest viewing figures of all time for an Australian tele movie. Posie was not just the producer of the film, but the initial idea originate d with her (though Caroline Stanton helped develop the concept) and she co-script edited the original script with Caroline Stanton.
A year later Posie produced the television film " Doomrunners", starring Tim Curry. It was show in the US on Nickelodeon and Showtime. And in 1999 year the television pilot of the series " Hi-5 " , co-created and co-produced by Posie was commissioned by the Nine network .
In 2001 the series of " McLeod's Daughters" finally made it to air, again for Nine. It was a great joy for Posie that the series became such a phenomenal success, all around the world. Just a year later Variety Magazine listed her in The Twenty Most Important Women in Films and Television for 2002.
Posie says that she was overwhelmed to be mentioned together with Meryl Streep and Jennifer Aniston .
That same Christmas in 2002 her first book was published. It was the first book of a trilogy.
The three books “The Innocent" , "The Exiled " and "The Beloved " became bestsellers and are published all around the world, including Germany, in German. The German titles are "Der Eid der Heilerin", "Die Heilerin Von Brugge" and, "Der Triumph von Heilerin".
The Trilogy takes place in the 15th century in England and concerns the enduring love affair between King Edward IV and Anne de Bohun . Posie Graeme-Evans feels passionately that people in the past are just the same as you and me: we just eat different things and wear different clothes; but what moves us, what we care about does not alter. Also the Middle Ages was a fertile era to write about: lawless, bloody but crammed with fascinating people!
Posie was once asked if it was more difficult to write a book or a storyline for television. She says: “Both have challenges but both are just about telling stories, so in a way there's no difference. However, in television you work as part of a team and when you write a book you work alone. That can seem odd sometimes ie being by yourself when writing a novel, when making a drama series can mean you work with up to 150 people at any one time!"
During the time her trilogy was being published - 2002 to 2005 (in Australia, later in US, Germany and UK) Posie was Director of Drama at the Nine network however she left Nine in November 2005 to take up a new multi-book publishing contract with NY based Simon and Schuster. She also continued to executive produce "McLeod’s Daughters. Her new books, "The Island House" (formerly "Freya Dane" and, also, "Holy Ground"), and "Ellen Gowan" will both be finished during 2009 with "Ellen Gowan" expected to be first published in Australia by mid next year. The idea for "The Island House", set 1200 years ago in the time of Viking raids, and in the present also on an island off the NE coast of Scotland, grew slowly in Posie's mind after a visit to the Viking museum in Roskilde. "Ellen Gowan" is the story of a woman who overcomes a shocking childhood to found a fashion business in 1850's London.
Posie Graeme-Evans ’ internet homepage is at:
http://www.posiegraemeevans.com/ ; she'd be delighted if you visited her there.