What is it about biographies that makes them so hard to write?  Does one have to be a star like Cate Blanchett, or a faceted award winner like Richard Flanagan?

I am none of those things, boringly ordinary with a mundane life – hardly of interest.  Indubitably my greatest achievements are my marriage and my family.  My husband Rob is my closest friend and is the backbone of my role as a writer.

I have had wonderful experiences in many different parts of the world but the best by far have been in Tasmania.  I live in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania, that island bunkered down to the south of the Australian continent.  Having been born and educated here and despite living in other places, my husband and I moved back about 17 years ago.  We love the island ethos, the security, the beauty and the freedom of living removed from the rest of the world and it is perhaps that above all else that feeds the bewitching sense of fantasy quivering at the end of my fingertips as I type.  We farm a cropping and wool-growing property just out of Hobart and when time and the seasons permit, I load the Jack Russell terriers in the car and head to our cottage on the coast and write, swim, walk and kayak.

I am university educated with a media and bookish background, but my life is essentially filled with the farm, the dogs, the family, writing, gardens, kayaks and embroidery.  If I am concerned about anything, it is that time races and I still have so much to accomplish.