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BIOGRAPHY
I
was born on
These
photos were some of those saved.
They were
taken outside our home on the river when I was around two years old.
After
the flood, we moved in with relations in
I
discovered books at school when I was about eight-years-old. The first novel I
recall reading was the Charles Dicken’s classic, Oliver
Twist. I loved this book, but more than anything, I loved the effect this
book had on me. Swept up in the excitement of this other world, I soon became a
voracious reader. The Library at school, and then high school, turned into my
favourite places. I spent many lunch sessions roaming the aisles and scanning
the shelves, always on the hunt for my next adventure. When I was in my teens I
liked to read long dramas and devoured most of James A Michener’s lengthy sagas. I think I read every book written
by Leon Uris that had been published
at that time. Then one day I read a novel written by Anya Seton called Katherine.
This novel ignited my love for historical fiction. I still have this book on my
shelves at home.
Growing
up, I wasn’t big on outdoor activities, but I enjoyed sport and played Hockey
for my High School. I also played Squash (Racquetball) with friends every
Thursday for many years. After I finished Grade Ten and passed my School
Certificate examinations, I went to a technical college and learned secretarial
skills. I graduated from my secretarial course in first place and immediately
found work for a solicitor in a Government office, where I stayed for the next
six years. When I was nineteen, I met a young man named John Curley, and four
days after my twenty-first birthday we were married. We had a new house built
in a young emerging suburb called St Clair, where I soon chose to be a
full-time mother. My first child was a baby girl we called Amanda, born in
December 1981. Danielle was born fourteen months later in February 1983, while
my son Chris was born in March of 1986.
But
the family wasn’t complete yet. Over the next few years we saw many pets come
and go - for one reason or another! We started with tropical fish and mice
without much success, then a few rabbits that were quickly followed by two
guinea pigs. Unfortunately, one night a roaming pack of dogs got into our yard
and the rabbit pen, while both guinea pigs escaped from their enclosure and
drowned in the neighbour’s swimming pool! After a while we tried our hand with
ducks, but the yard just wasn’t big enough so eventually we found homes for
them amongst the neighbours. Then we built a fabulous aviary, except a couple
of our birds came to a dreadful end when a carpet snake wormed its way through
the wire enclosure and ate two of our canaries for breakfast! We then bought a
cat from the RSPCA, but it was already sick and kept growing sicker until one
day, about three weeks later, it ran away and was never found. And finally we
welcomed two character-filled dogs to our home. The first was Chippa, an Australian Silky Terrier that we bought for
Chris for his seventh birthday. And then there is Missy, a cute little
Maltese-Pomeranian cross.
In
1988 John and I decided to move out of the suburbs of
These
photos were taken in and around
When
my son Chris was six years old, I went back to studying and passed examinations
in teaching office studies. The following year I started work at the
It
was during my teaching years that I tried my hand at writing. I found I enjoyed
the craft so much that I wanted to try to make a career out of it. I took
several writing courses by correspondence. I entered a few short story
competitions, winning one and collecting second place in another. The first
novel I tried to write was a romance. I wrote 55,000 words in six weeks and
loved creating the project so much, I knew that writing was what I wanted to do
for the rest of my life. To please my daughters who were young teens at the
time, I wrote a novel for young adults. I recall running the idea past them one
night at dinner. They sounded enthusiastic, so I took the project on
wholeheartedly. It took me about eight months to finish. The novel wasn’t very
well written, but the story was solid and an agent saw something in my writing
and signed me up.
Four
years later, Old Magic became my
first published novel, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find an Australian
publisher for it. Three publishers from
After
Old Magic, I decided to expand on the
concept of what might happen when something in the past is altered, or someone
from the past should suddenly disappear, and I wanted to write a story about
three people’s lives, a brother and sister, and a friend. I started researching
the historical periods of ancient
All
three books of the trilogy, The Named,
The Dark and The Key, have been
published in the UK, Australia, the USA, Spain, Germany, and Finland, and will
be published in the near future in Turkey, Lithuania and the Czech Republic.
The Named was also published in
In
2002, the Warner Bros Television production company took out a 12-month option
with the idea of making a television series based on the Guardians of Time Trilogy. A producer, director and a script for
the first episode were commissioned. Unfortunately, when the 12 months option
was due for renewal, the WB decided not to continue with the making of the
series.
Old Magic
and The Named were awarded the International
The
Dark was awarded the International
Reading Association’s Young Adult Choice for 2005 and was an International Reading Association’s
Teacher’s Choice for 2005.
The Named
was selected as a “Recommended Read” in the Red
House Children’s Book Award for 2003. The
Named was also selected in the recommended reading list for the WAYRBA – West Australian Young Reader’s Book
Awards 2005
The following are photographs of my family. I have included them in this
biography because they are the first to hear my ideas and their interactions
and experiences quite often inspire my writing. They are also the first to read
my drafts and are my most fervent critics. All three of my children now live
interstate.
John Chris
Amanda Danielle
In early 2004, after seeing my doctor for feeling run down and
excessively fatigued, I was diagnosed with a serious blood disease called Myelofibrosis. In May of that year, and with no other
choices left available to me, I underwent a stem cell bone marrow transplant at
the
My sister Therese, Professor Ian Kerridge, the
transplant team at Westmead Hospital including all the medical staff of
doctors, registrars, nurses and the wonderful social worker Annette Polizois, my GP Dr Andrew Duguid,
my incredible supportive family that includes my husband John, who underwent
his own difficulties at the time, my children, my mother, brothers, in-laws,
nieces, nephews, cousins and other relatives near and far, also my agent
Geoffrey Radford, and some very dear friends and neighbours.
My heartfelt thanks… Marianne