Lucy Walker (1) (1907–1987)

Lucy Walker was the pen name of Dorothy Lucie Sanders, born in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Her father William McClemans was an Irish minister of the Church of England. After her parents divorced in 1928, her mother Ada Lucy Walker supported the family as a nurse and then as a Justice of the Peace.

Dorothy attended Perth College and qualified as a teacher; she taught in state schools in Western Australia until 1936. She then married Colsell Sanders, a fellow teacher, and moved with him to London, where she taught while he completed his doctorate in education. The couple returned to Perth in 1938.
She began her writing career in 1945, publishing articles, poetry, and short stories. Her debut novel, Fairies on the Doorstep, was published in 1948. During her career, she also used the pseudonym Shelley Dean as well as her married name.

As Lucy Walker, she wrote about 39 romance novels over a 30-year period, many of them set in the Australian Outback. These were extremely popular in the USA and England, selling more than a million copies. In an interview, she once expressed regret that the popularity of these romance novels detracted from her other novels and kept her from pursuing more serious writing. She was an active member of the Australian Society of Authors and Fellowship of Australian Authors, and a member of the Society of Women Writers and Journalists in London.