Biography 

Joanna Hempel’s series of novels Chronicles of War & Love is based on the story of her extended family in Eastern Europe. Volume 1 covers the Easter Front of WWI and the Russian Revolution; Volume 2 covers the Polish-Soviet war of 1920, leading into WWII; Volume 3 will cover WWII and the Cold War.

An earlier version of Volume 1 was published in Australia as Feet of Wax.

Joanna Hempel was born in Edinburgh, the daughter of Polish refugees. Her mother’s family was prominent in Polish politics. Her father, Henry Millicer, flew in RAF’s Bomber Command during WWII, and became a successful aircraft designer in England and Australia. Hempel spent her childhood in London and began writing comic sketches at school in Melbourne.

A graduate in history, psychology, and English from the University of Sydney, she later completed a master’s degree in Theatre from the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia. She created the Armidale School of Youth Drama and became one of Australia’s leading playwrights for young people; her tragicomedies on youth issues, performed and studied in schools, universities, and youth theatres, were published in Australia and the USA.

Married to Polish-born mathematician Joachim Hempel with whom she raised four sons, the family spent some years in England.

To research her historical novels, since 2004 she has divided her time between Eastern Europe and Australia, where she lives on a farm outside Armidale in New South Wales.