A little about me
I live in a beachside suburb of Adelaide, South Australia and enjoy walks along the beach in a range of different weather. I grew up in the country area just outside of Melbourne, Australia. When I was young, my family moved a lot, hence I lived on a horse farm, a dairy farm, a sheep farm and in a small country town, before we finally settled on a small holding growing fruit trees (my favourite was cherries). Holidays were spent picking (and sometimes eating more than picking) cherries for pocket money.
I’ve always scribbled snippets of short stories, poems and random scenes from an early age. I started by writing mysteries for my younger brother’s entertainment. My first degree was a Bachelor of Science majoring in Chemistry which I followed a few years later with a Graduate Diploma of Education. However, making a living and raising a family preoccupied me for many years and the only writing I did was business documents which cramped any creative style.
My working life had the usual casual jobs when younger then I built a long and successful career in the public service which spanned roles as diverse as Management trainer, Team Facilitator, Statistician and Laboratory assistant. Finally, when the family was grown and mostly independent, and my retirement was in sight, I returned to creative writing. I devoured short courses and the ‘how-tos’ started to supplement the ‘what-ifs’ in my head. A plot idea, focused on the politics of the time, grew, and a six-month Graduate Certificate in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide propelled me forward.
To my delight, I’ve had 3 short stories recently published. ‘A Present of Presence’ in the auspicious anthology ‘When Stars Will Shine’ (Dec 2019) which raises money for the help4heroes charity (UK), and ‘Reunited’ (Jan 2020) and ‘Unforgivable’ (Oct 2019) appeared in the Writers’ and Readers’ Magazine.
