Hilarie Lindsay MBE OAM (18 April 1922 – 5 May 2021) was an Australian toy manufacturer and writer of short stories, poetry, instructional texts, biography and other genres.
[4][5][6] Her best-known work, The Washerwoman's Dream, was a biography of Jane Winifred Steger, described by one reviewer as "enthrallingly readable";[7] it has become an Australian classic.
[41] The same year she organised a playwrights' workshop for the Society of Women Writers, and commenced work on her own play, The Withered Tree, which she received an Australia Council for the Arts Literature Board grant to develop.
[44] She edited several anthologies of short stories, memoirs and poetry,[45] and in 1977 received the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal.
[47] In the early 1980s, Hilarie Lindsay commenced tertiary education externally through Deakin University, majoring in literature,[20] and was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in 1991.
After completing her PhD in 1997,[5] Hilarie Lindsay went on to publish a biography of Winifred Steger for a general readership, as The Washerwoman's Dream (2002).
A story of a struggle to overcome adversity, set in outback Australia, involving bigamous marriages to Afghan cameleers, conversion to the Muslim faith and travel to Mecca, The Washerwoman's Dream has been described as "a life story as enthrallingly readable as any novel", in which "the strength of the narrative .. rests on the firm foundation of Lindsay's thorough research".
In 2006, Hilarie Lindsay was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia, for service to literature and through a range of professional organisations mentoring aspiring writers.