Zora Bernice May Cross was an Australian poet, novelist and journalist.

She was born in Brisbane, and was educated at Ipswich Girls' Grammar School

Ipswich Girls' Grammar School

Ipswich Girls' Grammar School is an independent, Non-denominational, day and boarding school for girls, in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia....

 and then Sydney Teachers' College. She taught for three years and then worked as a journalist, for the Boomerang and then as a freelance writer.

She was known not only for her poems, including sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

sequences, but for a private life scandalous by the standards of her time. She wrote about sex, childbirth and war, in terms also considered too explicit by contemporaries.

As Bernice May, she wrote a regular column in the 1930s for the Australian Women's Mirror. It comprised interviews with women writers.

Works

• A Song of Mother Love (1916)
• Songs of Love and Life (1917)
• The Lilt of Life (1918)
• The City of Riddle-Me-Ree (1918)
• Elegy on an Australian Schoolboy (1921)
• Memory (1940)

External links

• http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080175b.htm