Doreen Clarke is an Australian playwright, who was born in Middleton, Lancashire on 6 May 1928. She left school to work in factories and cotton mills at the age of 14, during World War II. She and her husband Fred came to South Australia in 1958 and began writing short stories, some of which were published, and sketches accepted by Lionel Williams and Kevin Crease for their Tonight show. She began writing plays in 1976, after winning two tickets to the theatre. The first play of hers to be produced was Roses in Due Season, in Adelaide in 1978. Since then her plays have have been produced all over Australia, both by professional theatres and community groups. Her most well-known plays include Bleedin' Butterflies, Farewell Brisbane Ladies, and Cornerstone. She has been a Writer-in-Residence in many Australian theatres, and received a Literature Board Fellowship in 1983.

Shirley Johnson is the friend of Doreen Clarke whose early life featured in the play Left with Charlie, Shirley's mother Delia was put into a mental home after a suicide attempt when Shirley was five, and died there a few years later. The play is the story of what happened to Shirley and her brothers (Tom, John, and Robbie) after Delia's death, when they were left with only Charlie as a single parent and widower, and the experience of being in the care of their aunt, and later in a Catholic orphanage. Charlie was given a compassionate discharge from the Second World War and came to visit his children, subsequently removing them from the orphanage upon hearing their account of the treatment they received there.