About Me:

As a little girl, before I could even read or write, my mother introduced me to stories through a subscription called “Storieman”. I listened to tapes and followed along in the books, immersed in magical worlds. At school, I was finally taught how to write, and I eagerly mashed sentences together to create my own stories. I pinched my father’s old day planner—which he rarely used—and filled it with my own stories. I absorbed books, movies, and stories and would act them out during my playtime.

I grew up in a small rural town, which didn’t have bookshops, and you were reliant on the local library for most of your reading material. The popular genres in the library were mysteries and romances, which was fine, but it didn’t keep me engaged. My sister introduced me to fantasy, who gave me two Terry Pratchett books, “Weird Sisters” and “Lords and Ladies”. I loved his storytelling and wit, and was so delighted by the three ladies’ shenanigans, I had to read them a few times. Unfortunately, fantasy was not a genre most libraries had.

My mother had her own book collection, and she ordered books from a catalogue, exposing me to different genres, but fantasy were not bestsellers in South Africa and so it didn’t appear in her catalogues. Until we heard about Harry Potter, a talk show raved about the books and how they would be translated into some of our local languages. My mother bought me the first two books, and like the rest of the world, I was hooked.

In university, I majored in Mathematical Statistics, surrounded by friends who loved fantasy, who introduced me to writers like Robert Jordan, David Eddings, Tad Williams, J. R. R. Tolkien and Raymond E. Feist. I read more than I studied, getting lost in the amazing worlds these writers have created. One of my friends even questioned why I wasn’t writing, as I would come up with creative ideas and stories of my own.

Me, write? It sounded like a fantasy, but the seed was planted. I took a creative writing course on top of my other studies, and the seed sprouted. Slowly, I gained information on how to write a book. But honestly, it still seemed like a mountain, and I didn’t know how to climb. Before I could even fathom this road, I was thrown into the 9 to 5 hustle of the corporate world. I had put my writing dreams on hold. Writing would happen sporadically, but it wasn’t any good.

However, my inner child demanded creativity, and so I did a novel-writing course, How To Write A Book, with www.writerswrite.co.za, and my passion was reborn. I also followed a few YouTube authors who have inspired me to keep going. I’ve written two books to date and am busy editing them, hoping to set them free in the coming months.

Currently, I live in a village on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, with two dogs and four parrots (my personal dragons, without the fire-breathing part—which is a bonus). If I’m not submerged in work or a creative fantasy world, I’m fiddling in my garden, sipping wine at a vineyard or conquering a hiking trail somewhere—that is, if I won the argument with my “dragons” to leave the house.