As a child, I wanted to run an orphanage or be an author. Perhaps the Madeline books inspired both ideas. Debating whether to do good or have fun, I gave up studying to be a social worker and pursued a life around the written word.

Moving to the United States from Australia at the age of twenty-three, I earned a master’s degree in journalism, wrote a slew of press releases as a publicist, and, with small children underfoot, published feature articles in newspapers and magazines.

It never occurred to me to write fiction until I moved to Arizona, and joined a writers’ group. First, I moved gingerly away from factual reporting by writing essays. My essay, The Dog Catcher of Jabiru, won the Tara L. Masih Intercultural Essay Prize in the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition in 2014. Then, I discovering I could make things up and get away with it, I started writing novels. I write about women and their families, and the secrets that lie beneath.

A love of baking, Boston (where I used to live), and all things British inspired the novel, Lipstick on the Strawberry, published by The Wild Rose Press (2017)

The story won the Romantic Elements Category in the First Coast Romance Writers 2015 Beacon Contest. Lipstick on the Strawberry was a finalist for the 2019 Eric Hoffer Book Award and in the 2019 Next Generation Indie Awards.

My second novel, Joyous Lies, published by The Wild Rose Press, was released on February 15, 2021.