Kathy Mexted’s new book

KATHY Mexted’s latest book celebrates the determination, skill and enterprise of 10 Australian women who have taken to the skies.

Ms Mexted is a writer, photographer and editor, and was inspired by her father to learn to fly in 1991 before becoming a writer.

Take Flight follows her bestselling book Australian Women Pilots, which formed the inspiration for her latest release.

“I wrote the first book, Australian Women Pilots, and people often asked me where were the gliders and the balloonists and the helicopters and I would flippantly say they’re in the next book,” she said.

Take Flight includes the stories of a helicopter pilot, base jumper, paraglider, aerobic pilot and more.

As part of writing process, Ms Mexted was able to go ballooning and paragliding, jumping off a mountain in Bright and paragliding down to the landing zone, part of what she enjoyed most about writing the book.

She was also able to meet the women who the stories are about, something that was different to how she wrote the first story.

“Actually getting to meet them and to be able to share somebody’s story so extensively is a privilege,” she said.

“The first book was very similar, but some of the women in the first book weren’t alive, so that was interesting having to research it.

“This time, I actually got to speak to all of them and most of the ones in this book have digital photos, so a lot of the photography was much more readily accessible.”

Ms Mexted is celebrating the launch of Take Flight with a book tour, including a stop at the Belmont Library on Tuesday, November 5.

One of her favourite things about touring the book is getting to show a video she put together.

“I got all the girls to send me some footage of them doing their thing and then I put them all together with some music composed by my brother, who’s Whitt from Spiderbait,” she said.

For more information or to book for the event, head to events.grlc.vic.gov.au