About
I'm a ghostwriter, memoir teacher and life story mentor, and for more than 15 years I've helped people turn memories into stories worth reading and keeping.
I particularly enjoy working with people who want to write about their lives but feel overwhelmed by the idea of writing an entire memoir. You don't have to start at the beginning. You don't have to remember everything. And you certainly don't have to think of yourself as a writer.
Originally from the UK, where I worked as a writer and editor for corporate and government clients, I'm now based in Western Australia.
I live with my husband and two King Charles Cavaliers, who like to think they play an important role in the creative process.
How I got started
My first life-writing job was for Becca, a widow well into her eighties who lived in some style in a Georgian townhouse, complete with a live-in butler who had once been her husband's naval valet.
Once a week, I'd arrive for tea and another instalment of her life. Over cucumber sandwiches and a slice of cherry madeira cake, Becca, who had a gift for telling a good story, would take me back through the years. It was a wonderful introduction to earning a living by asking people questions.
Then, one afternoon, she casually dropped a rather important detail into the conversation.
Her adult children had no idea. Nor, apparently, did anyone else. We talked about whether this unexpected chapter belonged in her memoir. She decided it didn't.
Several years later, Becca died and left everything to the butler. And here's another twist.
I couldn't have invented it. That first memoir taught me something I've never forgotten.
It also taught me that writing about a life isn't simply a matter of recording everything that happened. We choose what to tell, what to leave out and how much of ourselves we're prepared to reveal.
More than 15 years later, I'm still fascinated by what happens when you ask someone the right question. Sometimes you get a funny story. Sometimes something painful. And sometimes you hear something the person hasn't thought about for fifty years.
Why I set up Life Writing Academy
Where do you start? What do you leave out? And have you really got the time and energy to commit to a project that could take months, or even years, to complete?
There is another way.
It could be the house you grew up in. A meal your mother or father used to make. A friendship that changed you. You know which stories have stayed with you. Choose one and start there.
Then look again. Some of the most interesting life writing begins after you've remembered what happened. That's when you can start asking:
Why has this memory stayed with me?
Have I been telling myself the same version of this story for years?
What couldn't I see then that I can see now?
At The Life Writing Academy, I'll show you how to find your stories, create scenes, choose interesting details, bring people and places to the page, and write in a way that makes others want to keep reading.
But I don't believe everyone needs to write a memoir. You may eventually decide to. Or you may write five stories, twenty stories, or just one that matters.
And now, of course, there's AI. It can suggest ideas, organise material, improve sentences and turn a collection of memories into polished prose remarkably quickly. That's useful. But it can't decide what your life means. It didn't live it.
That's why I created Life Writing Academy. Not simply to help people record their lives, but to help them become curious about the lives they've lived.
You don't need an extraordinary life. You don't need to call yourself a writer. And you certainly don't need to start at the beginning.