About
In my last year of university one of my friends bribed me to keep him company at a recruitment seminar with the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, (what student would knock back a free dinner?!). This proved to be a good decision because the Department ultimately offered me a job and I spent the next ten years being paid to write and travel around the world. I wrote everything from speeches, to ministerial briefings, reports and press releases, including once writing under the pen name of the New Zealand Prime Minister! Perks of the job included meeting Nelson Mandela, coordinating a tour of Zimbabwe by Australian rock band, Yothu Yindi and helping to push my total of countries visited over twenty.
After leaving the foreign service I became a consultant in international politics and trade, meaning I got to write a lot, usually from home (and occasionally in pyjamas). One of the highlights of this period was writing a book on women in export. I had the great privilege of interviewing some of Australia's amazing women exporters and was able to not only learn from their wisdom but also share it with others.
A twelve month road trip across the United States and Canada in 2009 gave me the opportunity to break away from writing about international trade and politics and try something a bit different. Twenty-one states and fifteen thousand miles later I'd finished my first novel, started work on the second and had begun to build a freelance portfolio writing for Australian magazines. I also posted over 200 blogs during this period, detailing a journey that author, Daniel Pink described as ‘terrific and inspiring’. You can read more about that journey here.(Admittedly the day Daniel Pink tweeted about my site I'd just written a blog on toilets...but I try not to think about that too much.)
I'm now based in Ghana, West Africa, where I write, blog, home school my daughter and plot ways to incorporate more travel into my life.