Patricia Sumerling has been a professional historian for more than 25 years. Although she has worked mainly in the heritage field, she has followed her own areas of interest in South Australian history. These include the social history of the hotel industry, biographies of South Australians, the city of Adelaide and the Adelaide Park Lands. She has published The Adelaide Park Lands: a social history (Wakefield Press, 2010) and a novel, The Noon Lady of Towitta, (Wakefield, 2010).