I've always wanted to be a writer, but I haven't had the chance until recently...
I grew up in Launceston, Tasmania. I first remember wanting to be a writer in about Grade One. I would walk around with my nose buried in a book ALL the time; once I actually walked into a hedge while reading and walking at the same time! 'Choose Your Own Adventure' books were some of my favourites, as well as those by Roald Dahl and Paul Jennings.
As I got older, I became more concerned about environmental and social problems in the world. Although my passion for writing never died, I decided to try and find a career that would make a practical difference to people's lives.
I spent some years volunteering overseas in far-flung places like Mongolia (where I lived in a yurt, or a ger as the Mongolians call it), Northern India, and Arnhem Land (where I once ate a mangrove worm - eeeew!). I moved to New Zealand to get my teaching degree, then moved back to Tassie, and since then most of my career has been spent teaching English to students from refugee backgrounds.
I love English teaching - it's a useful and fun job, and some of my students are the most wonderful people I've ever met. They have overcome hardship and dangerous journeys to get to Australia, and so many of them are incredibly dedicated to their families and their education. They are funny, brave, smart, and resilient.
I think anyone who met my students would be proud to have them in Australia. It's just that not everybody does get the opportunity to meet them. Some people in Australia seem to have forgotten that all non-Aboriginal Australians are migrants at some point in their family history. My family sailed to Tasmania seven generations ago, and their stories have inspired the first book in the series, 'Break Your Chains'. My friend Hani also caught a boat to Australia just a few years ago, and her stories and poems have inspired the second book in the series, 'Touch The Sun'.
In 2011, a new immigration detention centre opened just outside of Hobart. I wanted to give ordinary Tasmanians an opportunity to meet the asylum seekers we were hearing so much about in the news, and let asylum seekers in detention know that ordinary Tasmanians cared about them and would support them. I started an organisation called Tasmanian Asylum Seeker Support (TASS), which at first I thought would be a small group of friends doing social visits to the detention centre, but it quickly became much bigger than that. I was asked to speak on TV and radio and to the newspapers. We soon had over 200 volunteers and I was swamped with emails day and night offering to donate time or goods to the asylum seekers. One knitting group started making beanies for the asylum seekers and a Hobart-based film-maker made an award-winning documentary about them, which I appeared in. I was myself nominated for Australian of the Year, and I also won awards like 'Tasmanian of the Year', the 'Hobart Citizen of the Year', and the 'Tasmanian Human Rights Award.' My son was only four at this stage so it was like being caught up in a whirlwind! But I'm still really proud of what TASS was able to accomplish.
Now I've had my second child, and I have stepped back from running TASS and teaching, to follow my long held dream of being a writer. I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I write from home two days a week when both my kids are in school and childcare. Looking around, I can see the huge Lego models that my son and partner have built together, food and clothes everywhere that should really be put away, and a terrarium that houses my pets: eight spiny leaf insects. As well as Lego, stick insects, and not doing housework, our family loves camping, travelling, going to the sushi train, and watching movies. From our house, you can see the river Derwent, which is sometimes dotted with sailboats. My next ambition is to become a much better sailor, and have a boat I can take the family away on for adventures. But I never want to stop being a writer.
As I got older, I became more concerned about environmental and social problems in the world. Although my passion for writing never died, I decided to try and find a career that would make a practical difference to people's lives.
I spent some years volunteering overseas in far-flung places like Mongolia (where I lived in a yurt, or a ger as the Mongolians call it), Northern India, and Arnhem Land (where I once ate a mangrove worm - eeeew!). I moved to New Zealand to get my teaching degree, then moved back to Tassie, and since then most of my career has been spent teaching English to students from refugee backgrounds.
I love English teaching - it's a useful and fun job, and some of my students are the most wonderful people I've ever met. They have overcome hardship and dangerous journeys to get to Australia, and so many of them are incredibly dedicated to their families and their education. They are funny, brave, smart, and resilient.
I think anyone who met my students would be proud to have them in Australia. It's just that not everybody does get the opportunity to meet them. Some people in Australia seem to have forgotten that all non-Aboriginal Australians are migrants at some point in their family history. My family sailed to Tasmania seven generations ago, and their stories have inspired the first book in the series, 'Break Your Chains'. My friend Hani also caught a boat to Australia just a few years ago, and her stories and poems have inspired the second book in the series, 'Touch The Sun'.
In 2011, a new immigration detention centre opened just outside of Hobart. I wanted to give ordinary Tasmanians an opportunity to meet the asylum seekers we were hearing so much about in the news, and let asylum seekers in detention know that ordinary Tasmanians cared about them and would support them. I started an organisation called Tasmanian Asylum Seeker Support (TASS), which at first I thought would be a small group of friends doing social visits to the detention centre, but it quickly became much bigger than that. I was asked to speak on TV and radio and to the newspapers. We soon had over 200 volunteers and I was swamped with emails day and night offering to donate time or goods to the asylum seekers. One knitting group started making beanies for the asylum seekers and a Hobart-based film-maker made an award-winning documentary about them, which I appeared in. I was myself nominated for Australian of the Year, and I also won awards like 'Tasmanian of the Year', the 'Hobart Citizen of the Year', and the 'Tasmanian Human Rights Award.' My son was only four at this stage so it was like being caught up in a whirlwind! But I'm still really proud of what TASS was able to accomplish.
Now I've had my second child, and I have stepped back from running TASS and teaching, to follow my long held dream of being a writer. I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I write from home two days a week when both my kids are in school and childcare. Looking around, I can see the huge Lego models that my son and partner have built together, food and clothes everywhere that should really be put away, and a terrarium that houses my pets: eight spiny leaf insects. As well as Lego, stick insects, and not doing housework, our family loves camping, travelling, going to the sushi train, and watching movies. From our house, you can see the river Derwent, which is sometimes dotted with sailboats. My next ambition is to become a much better sailor, and have a boat I can take the family away on for adventures. But I never want to stop being a writer.
