Writing
I’ve worked with words all of my working life, but mostly in very prosaic and practical ways. I’m now drawing on my lifelong love of stories and novels to write my own short stories, creative non-fiction and now a PhD in Environmental Humanities, combining environmental history and creative writing.
CV
2024 ‘‘I Feel Like I’m Part of the Ocean’: the inter-connected world of the ocean swimmer,’ Westerley: Oceans Issue
2024 ‘Thriving in a World of Plant: the Possibilities of Ecobiography’ Environmental History Now
2024 ‘Ghost Plants: the Possibilities of Botanical Ecobiography,’ Life Writing
2021 ‘Greens Pool: In Praise of Wild Swimming’, Westerly: Great Southern Special Issue
2021 ‘Divergence’, Shortlisted in 2021 Newcastle Short Story Award, publication in anthology upcoming.
2020 ‘In Praise of Wild Swimming’ First Prize and ‘Courage’ Second Prize in Memoir Category, 2020 Eastwood Hills Literary Competition
2019 ‘Deviation’, Second prize in KSP Short Fiction Awards.
2019 ‘Balance Due’, published in Underground Zine, Issue 28
2018 ‘Just One Night,’ Shortlisted in 2018 Newcastle Short Story Award, publication in anthology.
2018 ‘On the Trail of a Ghost.’ Landscapes. http://ro.ecu.edu.au/landscapes/vol8/iss1/11
2017 ‘Just One Night,’ Shortlisted in 2017 Margot Manchester Memorial Short Story Award, Society of Women Writers, Tasmania
2017 ‘Greens Pool’, Highly Commended in 2017 Trudy Graham/Julie Lewis Literary Award for Prose
2017 ‘An Apprenticeship,’ Second place in the Memoir Category, 2017 Eastwood Hills Literary Competition
2016 ‘Baby Booms and Fallow Wombs: The False History of the Childfree’. Overland, 29 August 2016 https://overland.org.au/2016/08/baby-booms-and-fallow-wombs-the-false-history-of-child-free/
‘The Plausibility Gap in the Denial of Climate Science’. 5 July 2011, ABC Drum Online http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-01/hodgsonclimate/2778378
Latest Writing Posts
Swimming a novel to Rottnest
I recently listened to an inspiring interview with Kimberley Chambers, marathon ocean swimmer extraordinaire, only the sixth person ever to complete the Ocean’s Seven set of insane marathon swims. Closer to home, my swimming buddy Steve Junk has completed six of the...
On the Trail of a Ghost
I wrote an essay about researching the life of Sarah Brooks and the insights from being out in the disarming landscape east of Esperance. It is now published in the Landscapes journal. ~ I am on the trail of a ghost, the ghost of Miss Sarah Brooks, who died almost one...
Starting out late
I'm on the wrong side of 45 and I want my life to take a different turn. A turn towards writing, and if I'm lucky, being published. I don't understand what took me so long to get here. Writing is something I have always wanted to do, but I mostly secreted that...