About

I was born in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne, to a regular mum-and-dad family unit. Oh, and an older sister that had a great time telling me and showing me that she was. I’m currently working as a public servant, but I have had many roles and many lives that I hope will come to life in some way within my future storytelling.

I was fascinated with dinosaurs more than anything when I was a kid and was not particularly fond of reading fiction. I was a classic egghead, as long as it was about dinosaurs. I would often see some of my classmates head toward the fiction aisles of the school library, picking up a Tolkien or a Paul Jennings and sitting, sharing the latest installment together. I would absorb all there was to do with prehistoric animals on my own. I could rattle off big names like Pachycephalosaurus or Parasaurolophus without skipping a beat but was completely unaware of the power of good story telling.

My story telling was drawing. And if I didn’t say so myself, I was pretty good at making T-Rex come to life.

In high school English, there were many opportunities to do creative writing pieces, and at first I approached them with some caution as I was not great at structure or telling a tale without wandering off, leaving out key details. My first effort that I can remember was an assignment in retelling of the tale “Year of the Angry Rabbit”, a great story by Russell Braddon. In this assignment, we were tasked with ending the story differently to how it ends in the book. Without giving it away, (because it’s a great read) my English teacher gave me an “A” for taking the ending on a very deep and incomplete final stanza, opening it up for more of the story to be told. This was big for me because it allowed me to try something new that I might enjoy. His advice was to read fiction a bit more to allow for my imagination to take others on a different journey to the one they may not be expecting. It was here I began my understanding of the “hook”. He mentioned that his favorite writers were people like Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy and Australian writer Thomas Keneally. He also suggested that if I wanted to write well consistently, writing like these guys might be a good start. He must have known I wasn’t a good reader. So, he gave me people who were commercially viable to make sure it was of some quality.

It was around this time (@1990) I began work on one of the tales that I would later, and now still, refer to as my “opus”. Undermine is that story. I have built a universe so diverse within it that it will take a large amount of courage to make it into something I can believe that everyone will like. It may never be complete due to the fact I am a perfectionist, and I may not like the end result. Or I may continue to refuse killing off a character for the sake of continuity.

I have since learned that in order to be a great writer, you need to be a great reader. It does make sense, but with life’s distractions, sometimes it is far easier picking up the iPad and playing some games or burying yourself with Youtube videos.

And now comes where I am at present. I have a number of stories to complete, and a few I need to begin. I love writing and hopefully, one day, when someone reads what I have written, they too will also enjoy the journey.

Then I will be satisfied. Until then, I am continuing to learn how to write…

…and read more fiction.

etc.