Colleen McCullough (; 1 June 1937 – 29 January 2015) was an Australian author. Raised in Sydney, she trained as a neurophysiologist and spent her early career working at hospitals and universities in Australia and overseas. In 1974, while working as a research assistant at the Yale School of Medicine, she published her first novel Tim. Her second novel, The Thorn Birds, was published in 1977 and became an international bestseller. It sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and was adapted in…