Writer’s family pays tribute

IN THE final year of her life, Jenni Overend’s work as a writer would exist in the introspective realm of poetry.
But it was in the years that preceded this period, that Jenni made her mark on Australia as a celebrated children’s book author.
Her upbringing in the Yarra Valley cultivated Jenni’s love of the natural – all things wild and imaginative.
She settled in a fern-fringed home in the mountains overlooking the valley, in 1986 aged 30, and this would become the place from which she would raise her family of four children and write her award winning children’s books, short stories and prose.
Her first book, Princess Grandma, 1994, was inspired by a family adventure to Fiji where the princess of the island on which they stayed, was grandmother to her brother-in-law.
The story was laced with tales of healing leaves, a weeping turtle, the Kava God and Shark Spirit and would go on to win the Australian Multicultural Book of the Year Award. Her next book, Richard The Elder was published in 1995.
When Jenni’s fourth child was born in 1992, the birth took place at the family home on a cold spring night surrounded by midwives.
This life-changing experience would be the inspiration for her third and most well known book, Hello Baby, published in 1999.
At the time of writing, Jenni couldn’t understand why children’s books about birth involved mum and dad going off to hospital and returning home with a baby in a blanket. The reality of birth, to Jenni, was much more primal and significant.
Jenni’s three existing children were present for the home birth of their youngest brother, and it was Jenni’s belief that all children should be able to share in the richness and excitement that was the bringing of a new life into the world.
Renowned Australian illustrator Julie Vivas (illustrator of Possum Magic) agreed to illustrate Hello Baby and the union was apt.
Julie’s signature plump, colourful drawings brought to life Jenni’s lush story about a loving family, sharing together a natural birth at home.
Illustrations such as the baby’s head appearing from between the mother’s thighs would make this book almost as controversial as it was popular.
Amid rumours of conservative schools gluing certain pages together, Hello Baby was short-listed for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of The Year awards and published in the United States, Europe, Korea and Spanish and Mexican editions.
As she continued to raise her four children, Barking, a humerous take on Jenni’s own love of babies and dogs was published in 2005, and the awarded short novel for teenagers, Stride’s Summer was published in 2008.
Jenni’s journey as a mother and writer would be enriched and marred across 13 years, from 1998, when Jenni was diagnosed with breast cancer.
She began her healing with self-reflection and natural therapies, which were successful for a time.
Throughout these years the wellbeing and health of her family and also the health of the local environment were paramount.
Jenni threw herself into many environmental causes, was involved in protests and, with a friend, co-founded the Healesville Food Co-operative, which lived on till recent years – an organisation that gave young local families a chance to buy healthy wholefoods at wholesale prices.
The local community meant so much to her. Jenni was an active member of the Yarra Valley Arts Council, and taught at many schools across the Valley, initially as a primary school teacher, and later as a guest speaker at schools for creative writing, as well as running creative writing workshops.
Jenni also taught writing for adults at the Living and Learning Centre in Healesville for many years.
She was adored by students and always found a way to reach even the most lost soul through writing.
Jenni had a warm and gentle way, she was giving, and people were drawn to her.
She ran a community program for law offending women, where creative writing offered counsel and introspection.
Even through the time of Jenni’s own difficult cancer journey, Jenni still found a way to reach out to others through her writing.
She was a contributor to the Cancer Council Daffodil Day Arts program, and became involved in the Warrior Woman Project, an arts program to provide support to women affected with breast cancer.
Jenni would be free from cancer for six years until 2007. Treatment allowed life to return to normal for a short time until the discovery of further lumps in 2009, when tests would reveal that the cancer had become widespread.
She passed away at home in July 2011. The home was the same in which her youngest son was born and the home that was the setting for Hello Baby. Her family was with her the day she died, aged 55.
Her final two years were a period of introspection and thought. She loved the mystical ponderings of poets such as Rumi and Hafiz, appreciating their abstract takes on God and the spirit.
After her death, Jenni’s family were able to read her ponderings on life and death for the first time and her words were her final gifts of written wisdoms.
Jenni is survived by her children Tess, Sunni, Bryn and Bede, husband Chris, granddaughter Olivia, mother Olwyn and two devoted chooks.