Dr Kerstin Pilz

Dr Kerstin Pilz grew up in Germany and travelled the world before settling in Australia, where she now calls the Wet Tropics of Far North Queensland home. She holds a PhD in Italian literature and spent most of her working life as an academic, teaching European languages and Intercultural Communication, in Australia, Italy, The Maldives and on a floating university campus aboard a cruiseship.

Kerstin is widely published as an academic, including book chapters and a monograph on Italo Calvino. Her travel features have appeared in The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald and The New York Times. Most recently she published her memoir, Loving My Lying, Dying, Cheating Husband (Affirm Press, 2024).

Discovering the healing power of writing in mid-life was life changing, leading her to relocate to Vietnam and to start a small business www.writeyourjourney.com teaching writing, yoga and sound healing after completing teacher training in Nepal in 2016.

The pandemic brought her back to Australia, where she is now co-director of www.transformationalwritingretreats.com, leading creative writing and yoga retreats together with Queensland author Edwina Shaw, in Bali, Hoi An, Tuscany and Byron Bay.