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I was born in Edmonton, Canada. My father was in the Air Force, and just before I turned three, we moved to a village in France where we lived in a tall apartment block (No Pets Allowed!). The next move was to a tiny house with a huge garden in another French village. I started school there and learned to speak French after making friends with a little girl named Jacqueline.

When I was in grade 2, we moved to Red Deer, Alberta, and lived in several more places within Canada, and Colorado in the USA, until I finished high school. But wherever we lived, there were lots of stories, books and pets: dogs, cats, horses and guinea pigs.

After high school in Nova Scotia on Canada's east coast, I lived in London, England for three years, studying Occupational Therapy and travelling as much as I could. On one short holiday in Wales I met an Australian at a Youth Hostel - six months later Tom and I were married, and as soon as I'd graduated as an occupational therapist, I migrated to Australia. Our two children, James and Susan, were both born in Australia.

I worked in Albury, New South Wales, as a community occupational therapist, visiting people at home when they came out of hospital after an accident or illness. Later I specialized in working with children with developmental delay or learning disabilities.

After dairy farming for nearly twenty years in northeast Victoria, we sold the farm at the end of 1999, when Susan, our youngest, started university, and moved to Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. James and Susan are both working and living away from home now – James in Melbourne, and Susan in Vancouver. Tom and I are busy trying to restore our few acres of bush to its natural state as a home for wildlife.

I always wanted to be a writer, and wrote stories, plays and poetry constantly while I was in school – in fact, “Spring Island” - what you could say was a very rough first draft of Nim’s Island was written when I was 9.

I started writing again seriously in 1986. At the end of that year I wrote the picture book Amanda's Dinosaur, which won an Ashton Scholastic competition for an unpublished picture book text. I’ve been writing ever since. Some of my books are written purely from imagination and some, as you may be able to guess from the above bio, come from things that have happened in my own life, such as Yasou Nikki, some parts of Ark in the Park and the background for Leaving it to You. In 1991 I had a serious car accident and had to give up working as an occupational therapist: the young adult novel Peeling the Onion is partly based on this accident and my recovery from it. My adult novel, The House at Evelyn's Pond, is purely fiction, even though the main character's life intersects geographically with mine.

After the thrill of initial publication, the publishing milestones for me have been:

Leaving it to You being shortlisted for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year, junior readers, in 1993 (ironically, the same day that my long term injuries forced me to resign from my position as an occupational therapist);

Ark in the Park winning Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year, junior readers, in 1995.

Peeling the Onion receiving a wonderful reception in Australia and internationally, from both critics and readers, with awards including the Honour Book for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year, older readers, in 1997, and an American Library Association Book for older readers.

Nim’s Island being picked up, optioned and made into a film starring Jodie Foster, Abigail Breslin and Gerard Butler. This five year process has been one of the most amazing and intellectually stimulating times of my life.

I was born in Edmonton, Canada. My father was in the Air Force, and just before I turned three, we moved to a village in France where we lived in a tall apartment block (No Pets Allowed!). The next move was to a tiny house with a huge garden in another French village. I started school there and learned to speak French after making friends with a little girl named Jacqueline. When I was in grade... More