I am a poet and writer of speculative fiction, predominantly fantasy. My short stories have been published and awarded, but the story-world, Siaris, which I’ve been inhabiting and inventing characters and stories for since childhood remains my most compulsive writing passion. Of course, without the real world (or by collective consensus ‘real’, anyway), the spell-crafted wonder of Siaris would be a paper-thin hollow shell; it has also been the playground of my observations and a rich, varied, sometimes challenging life.

That ‘rich’ and ‘varied’ included a restless childhood, with many moves of location and schooling across Australia; music (piano, classical guitar); dance (ballet, flamenco); books, books and books (with a hefty serve of classic literature and fantasy – if you saw the amount of Tolkien on my bookshelves you’d believe me); and a love of drawing which took me into two decades of work as a visual artist and professional weaver. Travelling overseas and living for several years in the UK stretched my personal horizons in all sorts of ways. The loss of loved ones had a profound affect, as did a sensitivity to the suffering that has so far been part of the collective experience on Earth.

Through a lot of upheavals, a thread of gold was always there, sparkling in the background, slowly working its way forward through my work as a natural therapist and the journey of raising a child solo. We have spent the last seven years in the hills behind Perth, Western Australia, not far from a National Park – and yes, we have kangaroos regularly visiting the garden, along with a stunning variety of birds, blue-tongued lizards and the odd scaly serpent.

Now, with my son in his teens and a little more time on my hands, I’ve returned to writing, picked up long-ago fragments of Siaris and started re-weaving them… this time with attention to writing craft. My days (and dreams) are now immersed in the fourth book of what has become The Siaris Quartet. The first book in the sequence, Daughter of Hope, was released by Musa Publishing in June 2012. The second novel, Reunion, was released on February 8, 2013. The third book, Vow’s Answer, should be released toward the end of 2013. Stay tuned! When the fourth novel is completed, I plan to concentrate on poetry (another love – see the Awards and Publications sections of this blog) and start reading again, which has dropped to a trickle under this intense writing focus. There’s a lot of great writing out there to catch up with! The sequels and prequels that keep nudging in the background of Siaris, however, might have a different idea. We shall see…