I was born in Glasgow and did not come to Australia until I was 25.

By then I had met an Australian while working in Japan. We were married in Scotland in April 1991 and I moved to Australia in May.

Until December 2008 I worked as a high school English teacher in Sydney with a break in 1997 to have my son. I spent my maternity leave in Darwin because of my husband's work. I was pretty isolated up there so I decided I needed a hobby and started to write.
 
Initially I had a magazine article published and then a short story in a woman's magazine. I was determined to continue but we moved back to the Illawarra the following year with the son from hell who never slept and I returned to full-time teaching just so I could escape him. Writing went out the window. (My beautiful Paddy is 12 now and has just started High school. I love him to bits. He's like oxygen. I don't think I could breathe without him, but I was only ever cut out to do  the mum thing once).
 
In 2004, I started writing my first novel, Something More. I first wrote a rather cut down version of it in three months as part of Marg McAlister's Career Booster course. The important thing was that with Marg's input, I felt ready to send the ms out. I'm glad I did. It was rejected several times over but every letter had been specifically written to encourage me to work on it and resubmit. I did ... for almost four years and am proud to say Something More was released by A&U on March 31st 2009.
 
After that I wrote Boofheads, which ended up being released first, in September 2008. Walker Books took that one and it has just been put on the NSW HSC  English additional reading material for the topic 'Belonging'. You have no idea how much a buzz that is for an English teacher. It was also voted by the CBCA as a Notable book for 2009 for older readers so that's cool too.
 
My picture book, Noah's Garden was contracted in 2006 but won't be released until next year.

I've also written a load of stuff for Educational Publishers and they are really interesting to work with as a lot of that has been non fiction so it's been challenging for me.

It takes a lot of patience to be a writer … and hard work, a thick skin and a bit of luck too.
 
2009 brings a change of career for me as I am now working with my husband at our Mortgage Choice franchise in Sutherland, Sydney.
 
It will be strictly marketing and admin for me as I am rubbish with numbers. It's a bit scary to leave what you know so well and do something completely different but it's also exhilarating.
 
I am currently working on a book about Kerryn McCann, the Olympic and Commonwealth marathon runner who died last December from Breast Cancer. Kerryn was my friend and we had been working on the book for six months before her death.
 
I have also started my third YA novel.

So that's my story so far!