Penguin Books Australia

Children's and Young Adult book editor at Penguin, Davina Bell is the series editor of Our Australian Girl and author of the Alice series of Our Australian Girl books, set in WA and focusing on WWI and its impact on a family. Born in Perth, Davina completed a law degree before arriving in Melbourne five years ago to take up the Professional Writing and Editing course at RMIT University. Davina planned to write a mystery novel but when that went awry she took up Short Story Writing. To her astonishment, her first attempt was selected by Robert Drewe for inclusion in Best Australian Stories 2007.

Halfway through 2007 Davina was hired as an editorial assistant at Pearson Education, proofreading and checking page proofs. 'I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.' Davina then applied for a position as a children's book editor at Penguin. 'It seemed like such an incredible job I was sure I would never get it.' Three and a half years later Davina is still there and loving the job.