I enjoy reading about relationships. I like to see both female and male responses to situations and how different they are from one another.

Writing romance, whether it be my short stories or my historical sagas, gives me enormous satisfaction. My sagas give me the scope to really challenge the test of love between characters, which is how it is in real life.

I adore history. There is something timeless and wondrous in being able to touch a building that other hands created hundreds of years ago. While living in England, I was in awe when touring ruins and castles built so long ago. I always imagined myself back in those times wearing the clothes they wore and riding in carriages. My imagination would work overtime as I pictured myself living in the past.

I love trying to recapture the sense of how they lived then. I come from a working class Yorkshire heritage, and I feel very much at home writing about the strength of the people and the beautiful Yorkshire area.

Well, it kind of sounds like I’m mad, but there is no other way to put it. I enjoy it when my characters speak to me. Usually, it happens during the most mundane moments such as when I am ironing clothes. Scenes play out in your mind like little movies. You become a part of their world. You feel what they feel, see what they do. Sometimes it is a fright to come back to reality and realise you’ve finished the entire basket of ironing and you don’t remember doing a bit of it. Or is that just me?

My characters are a part of me. They start in my mind but as their story is put to paper or typed into a keyboard, they became very real. They make me laugh, make me cry, make me annoyed, but I couldn’t live without them. When I open my manuscripts, it is like greeting old friends.

I am a proud Australian, a first descendent of English stock. The beauty of this country is a natural setting but besides that I am fascinated by the history of English settlement in my country.

So far, I have set two of my sagas in colonial Australia and thoroughly enjoyed researching this period. My English characters newly arrived in the country find how different it is to live here. They have to deal with issues not known in England like heat, drought, travelling long distances through unforgivable and largely unexplored bush land. Everything is different to what they know and expect.

The seasons are opposite. The wildlife is strange and sometimes hazardous. They have the concerns of Aboriginals that can be friendly or hostile. Then there are the social issues of using convict labour and, later, when those convicts have finished their time and are back within the community how to treat them. The people clung to England as ‘home’ and kept to their traditions, which made them feel safe in an alien country. All this is a writer’s paradise. We can let our imagination run riot.

Yes, I am the list owner of a small historical fiction critique group. I cannot recommend such a group enough. To participate in a group of like-minded writers can be of enormous benefit to your writing. I will stress that it is important that there are rules for everyone to abide by and to only join a critique group if you have the time and the need to help other writers. Critiques are given and taken on trust. Egos are left at the door.

I feel my writing has become so much better by having others read it. When you write, you are so close to the work that sometimes you don’t see the mistakes or the weak areas that, with a little editing, can be made more powerful. It is helpful to discuss your work and the feedback you get is very rewarding. I like to know when my characters have caused a reaction and you get that from a critique group. We share the highs and the lows together and know that there is always a shoulder to cry on if we are having a rotten day and can’t string two words together to make sense.

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