Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
I grew up in Western Australia, where everything's trying to kill you. The little spiders want to bite and kill you. The big spiders scare the hell out of you, but they're okay, because they eat the little spiders. My cat used to bring home live, venomous snakes and leave them on the doorstep. Sometimes the beaches are closed because there are 5 m long sharks swimming close to shore. The local birds are so big, they use my cat for target practice with their pine-cone grenades. You don't drive at night outside the city unless you're willing to have your car taken out by a kamikaze kangaroo - and I've seen a big buck 'roo write off a four wheel drive.
My writing has a distinct Aussie flavour, which includes the local wildlife. I mean, even my romance has whales, possums and snakes in it.
When did you first start writing?
I think I started trying to write books when I was twelve, with the faint beginnings of what is now my Nightmares trilogy. I submitted the first manuscript to a publisher when I was twelve, too - which, thankfully, was rejected, because it was terrible.
I didn't seriously start writing again until I was thirty, when I was inspired to write the story that became Ocean's Gift. It spawned a whole series...and even I don't know how many books are in it.
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