journalist and cartoonist, was born in Victoria on 17 September 1957. She had epilepsy as a child and spent much time in hospital. After gaining her HSC from Mentone Girls’ Secondary School in 1975, she began a cadetship as a journalist on Standard Newspapers, Cheltenham in 1976 (completed in two and half years instead of the usual four). Her first drawings were done for the Standard News ; after it was taken over by the Herald and Weekly Times , she was paid $10 per cartoon (to a ceiling of $50). In 1980 she became a general and local government reporter on the Herald for two and a half years and did no cartoons until 1982, when she joined the Western Times , a local paper, as a journalist and cartoonist. Work as a publicist and translator at the Ministry of Consumer Affairs followed, where she produced 60 cartoons about credit for the training manual of the Financial Councillors Association of Victoria and 50 cartoons about credit for the Consumer Affairs’ training manual. Then she briefly returned 'to the joys of motherhood and breastfeeding’.

She had a stint in the Premier’s Department before becoming a reporter for the Sunday Press then sub-editor on the Age . 18 months later, she was invited to take up a day job as a full-time reporter and cartoonist on the Age’s 'Accent’ pages. After two and a half years, she took over the editorship of “Accent” for another two years. Cartoons published in the Age include 'Boring Nightly News: “Speaking of pulling strings, what’s the latest from you, Jen” [male to smiling female presenter on a string]’ (ill. WAR, 14).

Caf took maternity leave in 1992, then wrote and illustrated a weekly column about the joys of new motherhood and was a family reporter on the Age until 1996. She resigned to set up her own consultancy, conducted from her home-office at Boronia, at the foot of the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. She writes and draws for a wide range of government, private and community organisations in Melbourne and Sydney. Among her 30 or so regular clients are Kangan Batman TAFE, Quality Time magazine, Playgrouper Magazine , the Alternative Law Journal , the Victorian Association of Secondary School Principals Newsletter , New Scientist (Australian edn) and the Age in Victoria, and Hale & Ironmonger and Redfern Legal Publishing in Sydney.

She edited Breastfeeding Naturally for the Nursing Mothers of Australia (now in its third printing) and illustrated two books co-authored with Hazel Edwards. She also writes a weekly column on new appointments in the health sector for the Saturday employment section of the Age . Her two children were aged five and 13 (son) in 1998.

Writers:

Kerr, Joan

Date written:

1996

Last updated:

2007