In 2020, I was one of 20 winners of the ASA mentorship prize with my manuscript The Hungry Deep about the wreck of the Loch Ard clipper in 1878.
In 2017, I was shortlisted for the CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) Aspiring Writers Mentorship
In 2017, I was shortlisted for the Ampersand Prize with my manuscript Go See in the Night – medieval historical fiction based in 1381.
My Writing Journey
They say that “everything happens for a reason”. At Christmas 2008, my mum passed away from a short but nasty illness.
About three weeks later, I was travelling in Tasmania with my husband who was on business. A vortex began inside a bookshop and sucked me inside. I found myself rummaging in the ‘specials’ bin. I must add that this vortex problem is a common experience for me when I walk near bookshops.
Anyway, a book leapt out at me and it appealed to me in that hefty moment of time.
The book was called “Celtic Prayer”.
The title words spoke to me separately: “Celtic” made me think of misty, ancient Ireland. “Prayer” spoke to my Christian faith.
Over the next weeks, I gained a lot via each of those title words as I read through the book cover to cover. But something else whispered to me in the text – a paragraph or two about a boy named Maewyn who lived in northern England around the fourth century AD. One day pirates attacked his family’s farm, kidnapped him, and sold him in Ireland as a slave. It took six years for the boy to escape and return home.
But his heart had grown for the people of Ireland and within some short years he had returned there.
He became the well-known St Patrick.
“Celtic Prayer” brought together three things:
- my love of history
- my faith
- a desire – sudden and real – to tell a story.
And the story of St Patrick’s life became something I wanted to tell to children.
So I waded in to the world of writing for children, with no idea how to do it.
The story I wrote about St Patrick has not been published but it gave me a kick start.
Over the years, I’ve learned about words and writing and the publishing industry. I’ve completed several writing courses and read numerous books about writing.
One of my favourite words to do with writing is “Wordsmith”. I absolutely love trying to find the best word or combination of words to make a strong sentence, then building sentences into a great story.
I’ve written several (so far unpublished) novels, and been shortlisted for two awards, the Ampersand Prize and the CBCA Aspiring Writer. I also was one of the winners of the Australian Society of Authors Mentorship Prize 2020.
I’ve self-published one book called Emelin that’s in libraries around Australia, in random Indi bookshops, and on Amazon as a physical book and as an ebook.
Also, in 2022, my story The Aria of the Ocean was published in an anthology called Dust Makers, published by Rhiza Press. There’s a review of the book, and my story, here.
Everything I write is historical fiction for children or YA, either Celtic, Medieval or Australian. I keep going back, making them better when I can. I particularly love the research side of all of this type of writing.