Elizabeth Vercoe is a Melbourne-based artist and mother of three young children. Keep Your Hair On! is her first book and results from her experience of having cancer at a young age.

Elizabeth says: “When I was little I dreamed of being all sorts of things. An air hostess, a truck driver, an actor, a circus clown, a journalist, a pilot, a tree planter, a park ranger. Then, when I was older, 25 years old, I got cancer.

This was the beginning of an amazing journey. I saw some very dark and bleak times. I was frightened of living this way. But mostly I was terrified of dying.

When I was at the lowest and darkest point of my journey, I made a discovery: there is light even in darkness. Six simple words.

It is almost ten years since my dalliance with cancer. I don’t like calling it a battle because I was not really at war with myself. Keep Your Hair On! has been sitting inside me for a long time”.