Helen O'Neill is a Walkley Award-nominated Australian freelance journalist and author. Born and educated in the United Kingdom, O'Neill worked as a newspaper and TV journalist in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom and is now an Australian resident.[1] O'Neill was awarded an Australian Literary Council Grant in 2009 which included a six-month residency at the Keesing Studio in Paris.[2]
Her first book, Life Without Limits, is a biography of David Pescud, a dyslexic who pioneered Sailors with Disabilities.
O'Neill is best known as author of Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret and Extraordinary Lives, which details the life and art of the famous wallpaper and fabric designer Florence Broadhurst, whose death remains a mystery. The book was shortlisted for a Walkley Award in 2006.
The Australian department store David Jones commissioned O'Neill to write David Jones – 175 Years, whose publication in 2013 celebrated the retailer's 175th anniversary.
A Singular Vision: Harry Seidler, her biography of architect Harry Seidler appeared in 2014. It was short-listed that same year for the Australian Book Design Awards, and, in 2015, for the Australian National Biography Awards.
O'Neill's most recent publication Daffodil – Biography of a Flower appeared in 2017.