Like a lot of writers my background is a little all over the shop.

I was brought up in Briar Hill, which is a bushy suburb near Eltham, on the outskirts of Melbourne. I had a private school education, but decided to become a metal worker instead of going to university. Not sure why. But I spent four years doing an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner, with early morning rising, cuts, burns, unloading steel off lorries, grumpy old men and poor pay. All that made me appreciate my opportunities in life a little more and when I had my chance,  I went off to enjoy the lifestyle of a university student. About ten years later I left, with a Bachelor of Arts and a PhD, both in History. I've done a lot of tutoring, mainly in History and Women's Studies and have published around six full length historical articles in Australia and overseas.

But I wanted to get out of Melbourne, so I decided to train as a teacher.Once I had my papers, I moved up to Wangaratta and got a job and soon found myself teaching a strange collection of subjects: Engineering, SOSE, English and Indonesian. Indonesian was something I studied at school, to year 11 and had always enjoyed. I've been a keen traveller, mainly in South East Asia, so had actually used my school-girl Indonesian quite a bit. I liked the idea of trying to teach it.

I wrote most of Cut Loose, a novel for young adults set in Sumatra Indonesia, for my students at Benalla College. It was based around my own travels there a few years before, although my trip didn't result in any of the accidents, robberies or catastophe's (except breaking my foot in a stupid fall) that my characters were made to endure. I wanted to get across to my students that they might one day have a big adventure with their own high school Indonesian. I read my evolving story aloud in class in weekly installments, making a tiring afternoon double lesson a little more enjoyable for us all (I left out the bad language that appears in the published version, in case you were wondering!). My students seemed to enjoy it, so I went looking for a publisher. What a saga that turned out to be. In 2005 I became a mother and left my job. Since then my life has revolved around my children (in 2007, I had a second baby) and trying to get my writing published. I moved to Mount Martha on the Mornington Peninsula in June 2008. Then in September 2008, both Cut Loose and a history book (for adults) based on my PhD, Parting With my Sex: Cross-dressing, Inversion and Sexuality in Australian Cultural Life, were published.

More recently I have written a mystery thriller called The Beach House. In it now on the long journey of finding a publisher.