I am BEYOND excited to finally be able to share my book news!

I have signed with Penguin Random House for world rights of my debut adult fiction

A LIFETIME OF IMPOSSIBLE DAYS for publication in June 2019!

SO HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?(The longer and much juicer story)

Almost ten years ago, thirty-something year-old me started a journey to heal my past. I met a gifted counsellor who asked me a question.

“What does the pain look like? If you could describe it, what colour would it be, what form would it take?”

My voice was silenced in the way most are; fear, brokenness, an overwhelming belief that I was small and insignificant. But this tiny part of me that still sometimes imagined what if? took that seed of a question and planted it. Watered it. And began writing. At the end of two years in counselling I had a 100, 000 word Thingy (I was too scared to call it a memoir) that I definitely wasn’t going to show anyone else. My counsellor encouraged me to see what it might become of it if I wasn’t afraid.

In 2010 I flew to New Orleans, USA, to attend a writing conference where I pitched it to literary agents. For those of you who don’t know, an agent sells your work to publishing houses. The big publishing houses will not look at unagented work. So this was my first step. There was interest, but eventually they all declined to represent me. One rejection letter said the story needed more hope. I was crushed, but she was right.

The story wasn’t yet hopeful. It wasn’t yet healed.

It occurred to me that I didn’t even read memoirs, so what the heck was I doing writing one? I tried again with something I did love reading. Fiction. In particular, fiction with a magical twist. This time I had licence to create a story that was emotionally true, but completely made up, one that stepped away from my own world, but still allowed me to work through trauma. And I added magic. A good, heavy dose of it. A whole world of magical, impossible things and a rough draft of my book was born.

Throughout 2016 and 2017, I sent that book out to many agents. Then on the 14^thof October, 2017, a rainy Sunday morning, I got an email from an agent in the USA. She wanted to talk. With me. On the phone. ABOUT MY BOOK!

Then something else happened. The Manuscript Academy (a wonderful organisation that offers writers Skype sessions with agents and editors around the world) offered me a phone call with an Australian editor. Before we could even have the scheduled call, this editor emailed and said she had read my first ten pages and to please send her the whole book.

In the meantime, I went ahead and signed with the wonderful Nicole Payne at Golden Wheat Literary. The ink was barely dry on my agency contract when I had the phone call with the editor of Penguin Random House. She loved my book! WHAT??? And a little over a year ago (yes, I have been sitting on this news for that long!) on the 21^stof November, 2017, Kimberly Atkins of Penguin Random House, emailed saying they wanted to buy MY book! With shaking hands, I called my husband at work. I was a mixture of tears and laughter and complete, joyous meltdown. He came home from work and we jumped around the living room like little kids. I am now privileged to work with the awesome Beverly Cousins (editor of many wonderful books including THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS).

And THAT is the very long story of how A LIFETIME OF IMPOSSIBLE DAYS will be published in June, 2019!

Thank you for your support and I look forward to sharing the rest of the journey with you!