about

By day, I’m a health consultant and masseuse who helps to alleviate stress and teach people about healthy poos. By night, I’m a writer working towards finishing either of the two books I have on the go; Beat and Does My Vagina Look Fat in This? From Weight Loss to Labiaplasty: In Search of Self. It’s a fun life. It’s an interesting story. And it all happens in a room where I can be me, in the privacy of my own pink ugg-boots, under the illusion that I am all by myself…

my writing…

It all began when I was 9 and got hit on the head by a wayward football. Thus began my retreat from team sports; school ovals; crowds; loud noises; things coming at my head; pointed fingers; and snot-nosed 9-year-olds, and my penchant for quiet rooms with books and comfy chairs took hold.

Much to my father’s chagrin (in his head I was destined for the courtroom I think), I ended up studying Theatre and Creative Writing at Uni and the egotistical, perfectionistic, hedonistic and soon to be feministic me was born!

It soon became apparent that playwriting and directing were things I was pretty good at, and that of course, lead me to the firm belief at the age of 19 that I was destined for greatness. Greater than greatness! So I finished my degree, was involved in a new Theatre Company in Perth called Embryo Theatre Co. for which I wrote and directed several shows for a few years, gathered up my quill and notebook and jumped on a plane to London to my awaiting destiny (aka stardom, fame, fortune, and a perfectly clipped English accent).

Almost three years later, I was well traveled, a champion barmaid, and broke enough that on my homeward journey I spent a lonely 48 hours sleeping under a row of chairs at Singapore airport because I didn’t have enough money to pay the airport tax. I eventually made it home (and may I take this opportunity to extend a warm and heart-felt thank you to the Qantas staff at Singapore airport who donated food and orange juice for my 48 hour vigil to the humble airport chair) and after 4 months lounging around my mother’s pool, finally decided to pick up the pen once more.

The spawn of my endeavour was a one act play called ‘Love Me, Love My Whipper Snipper’, produced at The Blue Room in 1998. It was actually very successful, despite the terrible title. After that came ‘Grab’; a one act play about rape that was produced for the Artrage Festival. Then came the long dark night of the soul.

Perhaps that’s a tad too dramatic. I like to think of it as an incubation period…

For five or six years…

Sigh.

But still, I got a few things done. I had five or six failed relationships, I became a personal trainer, a State Figure Fitness Champion, a masseuse, a Touch for Health Kinesiologist, an Angel Intuitive, and Corporate Health Consultant, managed some feeble attempts at a book, edited someone else’s book, and was involved in the 2005 Artrage 24 Hour Play Project as a writer.

And now? Well, somewhere along the way things started to make sense. My feeble attempts turned into focused, disciplined, consistent writing. The first draft of Does My Vagina Look Fat in This? is done and awaiting a redraft and the fiction novel, Beat, is well underway and has been awarded a residency through Varuna in the LongLines program. I also write theatre reviews for Australian Stage Online.

INBA Figure Fitness 2003

The desiccated, dehydrated, dumbed-down-through-lack-of-sustenance me in 2003.