Some Stuff About Me
I've always loved to read and write, and I've grown up with a big appetite for adventure. But I grew up in difficult family circumstances where coping with my life was very challenging. Luckily, I learned to read very early, and soon realised that books were a wonderful way of escaping to nicer places, where life was a lot more interesting, and usually with plenty of fun to be had!
It spurred me on to have a few adventures of my own, too. Among other things, I've done a solo, two-month motorcycle trip across North America, hiked the Grand Canyon from rim to rim with a 56lb pack on my back, and instigated a high-profile political protest that forced a change in the law on breast cancer funding in my home country of New Zealand. I've lived and worked in a tiny village in Switzerland, and I once even hitchiked across the English Channel and on to Germany (and back!) to follow a touring rock band I loved.
My sense of 'if you can imagine it, you can find a way to do it' probably stems from my early influences of going on adventures with Mary Tourtel's and Alfred Bestall's Rupert Bear and Bill Badger, and then with Enid Blyton's Famous Five!
When I wasn't drifting over Nutwood in a hot air balloon with Rupert, or wandering through the ruins of Kirrin Castle with Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy, other characters were inspiring and captivating me with equally vivid escapades. I adored Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and the sheer brilliance of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. I still can't look at a free-standing wardrobe without imagining what could lie behind it!
I still have almost all of my favourite books from childhood, and I love to spend time in musty, dusty old second-hand book stores trying to find the ones I somehow lost along the way!
I've worked as a psychologist, in the prison service and with the NHS, and I now run my own business helping people with long-term insomnia to sleep properly again. I'm married to an engineer who also loves adventure, and we're both keen motorcyclists. We both grew up in New Zealand, but now divide our time between the UK and Italy.
For most of my life I've been too busy to devote REAL time to writing, but I've always written stories. Lately I've been wondering if they're actually any good... but, as time goes by, I'm feeling more and more compelled to paint pictures with words that might spark the interest of others who'd like to escape for a while too, from the normal daily grind. So, I'm taking a punt and putting out some of my work.
Sometimes, my characters take on a life of their own, and set off at a gallop, and I end up feeling like I'm running along behind them, trying to catch them and regain control of where they're going! It can be a bit frustrating at times, when I feel a story going in a different direction than where I first intended, but mostly its exciting, because it usually means we all end up in an even more interesting place.
Few things are better than curling up with a good book and "running away from home" for a while, and what I want to do is provide a private portal - a temporary, exclusive escape - to a fascinating place filled with interesting situations where, with the help of a little bit of love and magic, almost anything can happen!
So watch this space, because stories of love and magic are on their way, and I hope that when they arrive, you'll enjoy them. I hope that reading them will captivate you as much as writing them has captivated me. x x x