About me
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In the beginning... I grew up on a sheep farm in Hamilton in south west Victoria with my Mum and Dad and older brother Roger. It was an idyllic childhood. Constantly surrounded by animals, I had cats and dogs, (kittens and puppies too of course), canaries, doves, chickens and ducks (yep, chicks and ducklings), turtles, ferrets, rabbits, calves and lambs. My Grandfather... was a drover and a stockman and he bred, trained and raced his own race horses. I spent hours in the saddle, riding and jumping over fallen logs with my cousin Melinda. We hung out in the stables watching the comings and goings, seeing horses being broken in and farriers shoeing them. |
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We helped out here and there, mixing their bran and molasses and turning straw in their boxes. At the end of work, everyone sat around on upturned feed tins and chatting and telling old stories (please tell me bubblegum isn’t really made from horses hooves, is it?).
When my Grandfather's brood mares were foaling we would wake up in the middle of the night and head out with torch to watch a foal being born. It was an amazing time, and yet back then it was completely normal.
On the farm... I wandered around paddocks in my Grandfather’s gumboots with a bucket looking for mushrooms. My Grandmother would pan fry them in butter and we would eat them on toast.
I loved looking for caterpillars, the hairy ones that curl up into a ball in the palm of your hand, catching butterflies and tadpoles and yabbying down at the creek with my brother Rog and other farm kids on neighbouring properties.
Summer holidays, Easter and September school holidays were spent at Port Fairy (also known as 'heaven on earth') where my family has a beach house. Surfing and swimming and beachcombing were the order of our days. My parents have since retired to Port Fairy and I'm still spending every holiday there!
My schooling... was unremarkable. I went to Churchill Kindergarten and Gray Street Primary School. I loved every minute of it. My secondary schooling was at Hamilton & Alexandra College and being a fourth generation 'Bade' at the school I grew up with a strong sense of belonging. I adored my time at school, I wasn't great academically but had wonderful friends and played loads of sport. Maths was a major problem (sorry Mrs. Walker) and fortunately I realised early on that ‘words’ were my friends (thank you Mr Masur!).
Competitive Athletics dominated my life from age 12 to 18 and I guess I had moderate success, at state and national level. But what I learnt from this time was discipline. If you are prepared to work hard – you will give yourself every chance to succeed. And if you don’t get there - in the end, it’s the friends you make on the way and what you learnt that really counts.
How it all started... I'm a chatterbox and I've always had a compulsion to tell a story but only began to seriously put pen to paper four years ago. I just had to write it all down. Mistakes and all, that's how it started. I did some writing workshops, e-courses and creative writing courses and found myself a good manuscript assessor and it all went from there.
I'm going to write because I cannot help it ~Charlotte Bronte~ (novelist)
I'm an avid reader across all genres, but I truly find children’s writing to be the most uplifting.
I love history, particulalry Australian history and natural history and these themes are strongly reflected in my writing, particularly in my ‘Farm Stories’. My first publication was when I won a short story prize in the ‘2008 Banjo Paterson Awards’ and since then I haven’t stopped writing.
I enjoy writing in rhyming verse and aspire to write stories that evoke an emotive response and make a positive connection with children and adult readers alike. Humour and irony are both an important part of my repertoire.
When I am not writing, I’m kept busy by my three sons (Lach and Josh, my teenage stepsons and Toby, our inquisitive six year old) and my wonderful husband Ian.
13 things you might not know about me:
I am an Aries
I am a qualified Cheese Maker
I am very good with a calculator
- ...In my first job in Product Development at Campbell Soup Company in Shepparton, I Ooops’ed on a decimal place on the addition of black pepper into a Baked Beans product. Whoooa! hot hot hot at the product tasting the next day...fortunately for me they were able to be sold as ‘Spicy Baked Beans’ through their Cash Sales Store.
I am passionate about writing stories that matter
I have acute hearing (bionic actually)
I am a collector of the unusual: stones, bones, feathers, old china, rare books, maps, deceased bugs
I love Yoga
I am a bird watcher and a member of www.birdsofaustralia.com
I love big trees, gum trees, boabs, red tingles and myrtles
I can crack a stockwhip
I have ran the Melbourne Marathon (I don't recommend it)
I am NAUI Openwater 1 Scuba Diver
I have trekked the Inca Trail and Macchu Pichu in Peru, South America.
The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it
- Chinese Proverb