ABOUT ME
I confess, I love purple prose and Victorian Era settings. You could say I'm a romantic writer who doesn't do romance. There are few things as inspiring as a well crafted turn of phrase. At any given time I’ve got two or more novels and a dozen short stories on the go. Right now I’m focusing on my own work, specifically a loosely tied together Sci-Fi series and an Urban Fantasy serial. My writing draws on a lot of my experiences, especially the different ways we can view the world. There is nothing more comforting than meeting someone with a common language, yet a completely alien cultural frame of reference. How around the next corner could be a whole hidden world, invisible to anyone who doesn’t leave the tourists path. Maybe you’ll find yourself caught up in a strange festival that seems like it comes from another time. Beauty and mystery is all around us, we just have to look.
When I was little I lived a few meters from the water and wanted to be a writer. I learnt to ride a horse and paddle a kayak before I was a teenager, and had some competitive success with both. Still trying to master this ‘bicycle’ thing though. In the end, I found I was far more productive as an editor, it's so much easier to be critical when it isn't your own work. I'm still writing, though.
I haven’t always stayed put. I did a month around China by train, visiting the usual tourist traps and cheerfully getting fleeced by Beijing students who ‘helped’ with an overpriced visit a local tea shop. Did the rounds of the Forbidden City (interesting) and the Summer Palace (gorgeous), before seeing the terracotta warriors. After that, I moved to Korea to teach English for a year but realised that a teacher's life was not for me. In the end, I wandered home a bit older, and a bit wiser, and a lot thinner.
I honestly believe that nothing soothes the soul and opens the mind as much as new experiences and that the best new experiences are found when you travel outside your comfort zone. Coming from such a young nation, I like my travel to come with a healthy slice of history, so since Asia, I’ve fallen in love with Florence, seen the glory that was Rome, had the best salad I’ve ever tasted at Knossos, and almost died of the heat in Athens. Oh, and here’s a pro-tip for you, San Gimignano has the best gelato in the world.
Travel aside, I started my tertiary education in nursing, but in the end paid my way through University doing security work and got a psychology degree. I considered a military career for a while, but my knees had other ideas. So for I worked for a while in the Health Service, first as a Human Resources Drone and the with a Mental Health team in a small country town. That was an eye-opening experience, but a rough one.
Right now I live in Australia now, at the top of a mountain that hasn’t seen snow in years, and about a day's drive to a capital city. I miss the water, but the rural life agrees with me. Being a thousand feet above sea level means I get lovely cool summers, but its a long drive to the beach. Still, I’d like to head back to Florence again with a laptop and a lot of time to write. Might have to drop in on a few additional places along the way. Maybe I’ll see you there, I’ll be the tall one with the blissfully dazed expression on their face and a notepad in their hand.
FYI: I am currently focusing on my own writing and am not accepting manuscripts from new clients.