D L Richardson

I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney, Australia. I have three brothers and one sister. At one time in our house there were five kids, two parents, three dogs, three mice, one bird, and one cat. My house was always noisy, messy, crowded, and there was no privacy. These factors are a huge influence on why I jumped feet first into the world of fiction, first as a reader and then as a writer.

I know this sounds corny, but I used to write plays and songs when I was eight. I don't count this as the first moment I started writing, but it does explain why I never followed through with any of the other subjects I was good at in school, like maths and science.

I left school and helped form a rock band, where I played bass guitar and wrote all the lyrics. In 1996, I realised I didn't want to continue pursuing a music career so I quit and I immediately began writing, both short stories and novels though I would usually get to chapter 3 of the novel and stop. It took a few years to complete my first novel and submit it to publishers and a few more years after that to get published.