“Before the Devil Wept’ is the title of my next book, due to be released in early 2027. This book is set in the ghost town of Mt Mulligan, about 160 kilometres north-west of Cairns and near Dimbulah in the Atherton Tablelands in north Queensland. Mt Mulligan itself is a huge sandstone range set in …
One of the things I love doing in my novels is to add in an extra touch about something many people will recognise but not know much about. Researching these extra items often takes me down ‘rabbit holes’ which can last for days, but which are fascinating in their own right. While writing ‘The Sandalwood …
‘The Memory Chest’ was my very first novel and believe it or not, it was over sixteen years in the making. The idea for a novel began when I first pulled together the recordings of Jean Zuvela into the book ‘Glimpses of Jean’. That was my very first attempt at writing a book and I …
Public speaking has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. This does not necessarily mean I enjoy it. I’ve always been reasonably introverted and having to get up and speak publicly is not something I willingly volunteer to do. But years of practice have meant I’ve developed the ability …
Every day I receive upwards of twenty emails offering me marketing services. Usually, they are extremely long tirades of praise for ‘my book’ – rarely actually named – a detailed analysis of the gaps in my marketing, and then an offer to fix those gaps – at a cost. I have learned to read through …
At the end of every novel, I have written a tribute to the wonderful volunteers who maintain the Trove national database, a collaboration between the National Library of Australia and hundreds of partner organisations around Australia. Trove contains digital copies of newspapers, Government Gazettes, maps, magazines and newsletters. It also hosts books, pictures, photographs, archived …
In this, my second blog, I decided to write about my other passion – genealogical research. When my parents died, many years ago, they left behind folders and folders of painstakingly collected family history research. Some older family members had been researching for years and there were many records such as birth and death certificates …
Welcome to my first blog! In this piece, I thought I’d talk a little more about the research behind my most recent book, Last Coach to Quartz Hill, to add to what I said in the historical notes at the end of the book. I began by doing an internet search for the Quartz Hill …
