My books tell a lot about me. I've been published in Australia, New Zealand, USA, Brazil, Japan, Thailand, Russia, Norway, Korea and Italy.

My photographs have been in Australian newspapers and magazines; UNESCO magazines, and a German non-fiction book called Mumien Magier Meuterer

I write because I love stories: reading, telling and writing them. Wonderful moments happen when readers laugh, think and, sometimes, cry. I've written plays, poems, speculative fiction, historical, thrillers, humour. I sometimes give talks in schools and speak at writers' festivals and conferences.

In grade two at school I won my first writing prize, a silver star handed out at assembly, for writing A Day in the Life of a Rubber Ball. That was also the year I ran slowly in kiss chasey when Gary Allan was it. In grade seven I was hit in the head by a discus, which ended a romance with Roger - he threw the discus. I also fell off the monkey bars, which ended any possible romance with anyone that year because they were all watching!

I am a member of the Australian Society of Authors and South Australian Writers' Centre.

• Awards (click the link for a full list)
• Premiers' Reading Challenges (many of my books are on the various State lists)
• Editing (school anthologies, Old Yanconian Daze by Bill Swampy Marsh, No Bed of Roses by David Harris, In Looking Glass Land by Noelle Tolley)
• Manuscript Assessments
• Tutor for 'Writing for Children' six week intensive course, Adelaide Hills, 1994
• Judge for BankSA Short Story competition: Advertiser Young Writers Awards; NSW School Magazine young writers competition; Nestle Write Around Australia Short Story Competition
• Researched, scripted and performed (in a wonderful costume, I might add) Maggots and Mayhem, a one-person play about early Adelaide, 2002
• Columnist, All-Write magazine (for young writers), 2003
• Sleeping In, the picture book I wrote and Craig Smith illustrated, was National Simultaneous Story-time book
• Australia Council Literature Board Grant,  Trees in My Ears 1990, Spy Girl  2004
• SA literature grants, and in 2006 I was privileged to win the Carclew Fellowship (South Australian Festival Awards for Literature)
• A musical play adaptation by Outlet Dance of two of my short stories toured SA in 1995 and was performed at Something on Saturday, SA Festival Centre
• Storyteller, Something On Saturday, Festival Centre Adelaide
• David Harris and I co-wrote and performed a play for 5 - 7 year olds, 1993
• Book Week Guest Author,The New International School of Thailand, Bangkok, 2002
• Guest Author, Vancouver Elementary Schools & Roundtable speaker, Canada 2003
•  Speeches at Rotary National Conference, Children's Book Council National Conference, School Librarian Associations in most states of Australia, ALEA, Multicultural Teachers' Association, Flinders University, Adelaide University, Wollongong University, Meet the Writer Festival SA Convention Centre, English Teachers' Association, Voices on the Coast Literature Festival, Newington Literature Festival, Somerset Celebration of Literature, All Write Festival, SA Writers Festival, Melbourne Writers Festival, Sydney Writers Festival, Ipswich Children's Festival  ... phew, I forget the rest ...
• Mentor to Dominie Whyntie, to complete her biography Love and War and All That Stuff, 2005
• Film options: Hairy Legs and My Australian Story: OUTBACK 
• SA State Library Community Advisory Board, 2004
• Arts SA judging panel, SA Festival Awards Fellowship, 2008

I'm asked lots of questions, so for more information, online interviews and articles and the occasional video clip, see FAQs