about
Here's everything you never wanted to know about me:
In the beginning...
Born and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, the baby of a large boisterous family, I quickly learned that the sea is beautiful but scary and sticky and if you don’t dust regularly you’ll end up buried under a sand dune.
when suddenly...
School was torture but books were (and still are) paradise. I survived into adulthood on a steady diet of fiction and mythology, lammingtons, and abusing the family piano.
And then...
After getting married, moving to a really ugly city, working at a number of jobs and then finally getting my absolute DREAM job, I burned out. This led to a diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and Depression. I could finally experiment with drugs in a socially acceptable way. We got them right eventually, and therapy taught me many tools for managing my condition, as well as how to live with my dissociative disorder (OSDD) and CTSD.
It all felt a bit like peeling back layers and layers of imposed and adopted personality and finding the real me underneath. I rediscovered my love of writing and finally set out to accomplish the goal of my childhood: to write a book.
You can buy that book here.
in our next episode...
I write a bunch more books, including a humorous fairy tale retelling series set in a Victorian-esque spoof of the real world, discover how to eat chocolate without getting fat, and achieve world peace.
A few of the things I like:
- Most types of music (OK, not metal)
- Chocolate cake, chocolate dessert, dark chocolate ... you get the idea
- vegetating in front of a good movie or series
- Writing things that make people laugh and then go 'hmm' with a wrinkled brow
- Rainy days
- Snuggling up with the kitty or the hubs or a particularly cuddly blanket
Favourite Authors:
- Terry Pratchett
- Georgette Heyer
- Douglas Adams
- Laini Taylor
- Agatha Christie
- Gaston Leroux
- Mary Stewart
- Laura Thalassa
- Jane Austen
- Lianne Moriarty
Favourite movies that tell you a lot about me:
- The Princess Bride
- The Pirates of Penzance (the one with Kevin Kline & Angela Lansbury)
- The Fifth Element
- The Wizard of Oz
- The Little Mermaid
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Labyrinth
Things to expect in my books:
- Neurodivergent characters
- Mental illness
- Spoofs on pop culture
- The word 'the'
- Ballgowns
- Sensible endings
