I can’t say I’ve always wanted to be a writer because that is not strictly true. When I was a young kid, I wanted to be a mother craft nurse – the vocation of my favourite cousin. But around nine, I dumped this idea and began to write. 

My first instinct was to write longer narratives and I set about construction stories that looked remarkably like Nancy Drew and the Famous Five. I wrote my first ‘full-length’ novel at 11 and I haven’t stopped.

The truly lovely thing about writing as a child is that every word is delicious and precious. You are your own best reader. As I’ve grown older, and writing as a MUCH older writer, I’ve lost this sense of the precious as I string my words together.

At one stage I thought that becoming an academic would give me time to write, so I went and got degrees up the wazoo and settled into giving tutorials, lectures and comments on thousands and thousands of essays.

After moving to the east coast, I worked for a weapons systems designer and defence contractor in BrisVegas before moving to Melbourne, where I worked for a systems engineering company testing gaming equipment. 

Long hours meant no writing. At least not on paper. But, I’ve never stopped writing and rewriting stories in my head.

I moved permanently back to Perth in 2003, had a short stint back as an academic then gave it up to become a consultant to engineering companies.

Tossing the whole lot in by 2018, I now focus on writing. My days are spent at the South Perth Library, which I like to think is the best office in the world and I live close by with a husband and four deliriously spoilt cats.