I grew up in Brisbane, during a time when Sunday drives and family picnics were something to look forward to, and we could still ramble about our backyard and our neighborhood like ‘the good old days’. I’ve lived in an era of change - from tape decks to cds to streaming. From handwriting to typewriting to desktops, then laptops and smartphones.

Now the Sunshine Coast is my home, in amongst the gumtrees, surrounded by the ever-widening black-ribbon roads, between two of my favourite places in the world. The mountains and the sea. And it’s in this in-between place where my stories, long held in my heart, are finding their voice.

I’ve had two careers in my life so far - a stay-at-home mum and a teacher; and if you read my newsletter you’ll catch glimpses of how both of these shape my approach to writing now and some sneak peaks into my life with a growing family filled with babies, puppies, and kittens. And crows, snakes, spiders, and bluebottles.

Which brings me to career #3 - writing. I am a writer. The truth is I have always been a writer, filling scraps of paper with ideas, sentences, characters, and experiences, and blogging my way through family life and teaching. Now it’s no longer something I only do around the margins of my days.

Embracing change is always challenging and it requires a sense of curiosity, wonder, and creative thinking to navigate. So, something new, but I’m drawing on what I’ve learned before as a mum and as an English teacher.

I am currently working through a developmental edit on two manuscripts - a short story and a novella set in a small sea-side town. The novella currently sits at about 40,000 words and is a small town romance, with a little sprinkling of suspense (think cozy mystery style). My fantasy world is under construction and is in worldbuilding stage - mapping, histories, lands, nations, cultures, magic. This is just plain fun.

Oh, and I’m also studying a Grad Dip in Creative Writing and Communication.

So, I’ve got lots of new things planned for the year ahead.

Thanks for joining me here.

Amelia Joan