I was born in Western Australia, one of six children. My father was a doctor, my mother a nurse, and although I have always been drawn to writing I thought it would be safer to do medicine. I became a general practitioner then a specialist in the health of populations (immunisation programs, epidemiology that kind of thing) with an emphasis on infectious diseases work.

My husband is a teacher and we have two sons. My work took us to many parts of the world; England, Russia, China, Africa and a lot of time in Canada. We live in Canberra now.

My early working life though, and I still return to it, was working in the outback and mainly with Aboriginal people.

In 1992 I wrote a short story Toyota Dreaming which won the Harold Goodwin short story prize at the Henry Lawson festival. I started writing again many years later and while researching for the novel Cicada, I wrote an essay titled Who Killed Matilda?, co-winner of the National Calibre essay award in 2011. Cicada was published by Allen and Unwin in 2014.

I am grateful for my time with Aboriginal people and working in the bush for I gained a deep appreciation of nature and culture.

Essays I am writing now are varied but many are to do with nature and some will be illustrated by wildlife photographers and artists. My second novel, in progress, is to do with different part of the world but nature will feature…