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I began writing when I was 28 years old. I so wanted to paint the things I saw out my window — native forest, sea, beach, birds, my garden — but I found that I wasn't very good at that. So I decided to paint with words, instead, and that was the beginning of my writing.
Since my first novel I've published over two hundred books: novels, short stories, 'readers', television scripts, plays, picture books, non-fiction titles, and poems. I've been lucky enough to have won several children's book awards in the fiction, non fiction, and picture book categories. I was especially pleased when I was shortlisted for the Australian Wilderness Society's Environment Award for Children's Literature in 1997. I have been the recipient of two Arts Council writing bursaries and in 1994 I was Writer in Residence at the Dunedin College of Education.
In 1996, as well as writing, I began a new job as an Editor of the School Journal. This is something that I still do from my home. I live with my husband, Keith Olsen, who illustrates and writes for children, and with our ten year old son, Max. My home is beside the sea in the Catlins, a remote region on the south-east coast of the South Island. When I am not writing and editing, I enjoy gardening, walking our two donkeys, Ambrose and Edith, playing with our pet rat, Maisie, looking after my beehives, reading, and travelling.
I often 'think' in stories and I always have story ideas in my head and in my notebooks. I enjoy making children laugh, introducing them to the exciting natural world that is right under their noses, taking them to places they may have never visited before, and just plain entertaining them. Like most writers, I write best about what I know: the people, places, and events that are all around me.
A Sonnet for the City
The Whaler's Garden
A Whistle from the Blunder