When I was about nine years old, I made a small book for my mother about animals in the Australian wild, illustrating the text, stitching the pages together with a darning needle and wool. I knew way back then that I was meant to be a writer and an artist.

 

I had never seen animals in the wild, but we can no longer say, as they once did, "Write what you know". With so much fantasy fiction around, how can we? And what about fairy tales, and science fiction?  Nobody can stop fiction writers from making  up a bunch of things they've never experienced. It's this that makes writing such magic - the ability to conjure up anything, anyone, anywhere, whenever we want.

 

Painting was always my other love, as you'll see by the variety of art at this site, and that calling fights with my need to write. One or the other gets me up each morning. I always find wonder in the written word and illustrative paintings, both mine and others, and I can't imagine a life without them.

 

I’ve been drawn to old houses as long as I can remember - the mystique of them, the vibrations I believe exist in them, both good and bad. I’ve owned several houses in different countries, and I’m never satisfied with simply renting, although I’m currently doing it.   I need to add my own touch to a house, make it uniquely mine, because I love to decorate and garden.  As a die-hard environmentalist, I've always fancied running an organic smallholding in a more-or-less self-sufficient way, although I don't know if I'll ever do it. I would have far more animals (two cats are about the limit for now); companion animals are essential in my life.

 

Not surprisingly, my present novels (and a lot of my paintings) feature houses as major players.  I still have several unexplored plot ideas that also will involve houses. Yes, a fifth novel has started talking to me, this one from a ruin of a cottage in England, I think. Houses are my inspiration. Perhaps, one day, fiction publishers will consider a “house” genre. I know there are others who have this same odd obsession.

 

Whichever country, whatever house, recognized or ignored, I’ll continue to write and paint. And I'll try to pursue a life as green as a meadow after spring rain.

​

​

​