I grew up in Canberra and Batemans Bay—the capital and the coast—and travelled often between them. One of my favourite places along this route is the section between the Clyde Mountain and Nelligen on Yuin country. Despite the nausea-inducing winding road, I came to love this ancient rainforest of eucalypt and soft tree ferns, or what I could see of it from the car windows. It gave me a sense of security whenever I was unsure which side of the mountain was home. Today I live near another windy road through a forest, in the foothills of the Dandenong Ranges outside Melbourne on the lands of the Wurundjeri people.
My journey between these two forests has been somewhat of a meandering path, guided by my curiosity for the past and love of storytelling. The short version is that I have qualifications in writing, cultural heritage management, and history, and have worked as a tour guide, curator, reference officer, research assistant, consultant and lecturer. I’ve researched a diverse range of topics—everything from fanzines to the gold rushes—and my writing has appeared in brochures, exhibitions, interpretative signage, heritage reports, peer-reviewed journals, and other history publications. You can find more information about my employment history here, and access some of my published writing here.
More recently, this path led me to complete a doctorate in history at Monash University with a thesis on Women and Community on the Upper Goulburn Goldfields in north-east Victoria. This project inspired a continuing interest in the stories of women, families and communities on the nineteenth-century goldfields in Australia and New Zealand. You can read more about my doctoral research here.
I belong to a number of professional networks, including Australian Historical Association, Australian Museums and Galleries Association, Professional Historians Association (Victoria & Tasmania), and Writers Victoria. I also volunteer with State Library of Victoria and Old Treasury Building Museum.
While I continue to wander along this meandering path, I am also attentive to interesting side-tracks. If you require high level research skills and an experienced writer who can turn facts into fascinating stories then please contact me.