Biography

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Writing – and drawing – were an extension of the vivid imagination that coloured Amanda’s childhood. She was an avid reader of classic children’s stories such as Grimm’s Fairy Tales and those’ by Hans Christian Anderson and many of Disney’s animated movies like 101 Dalmatians starring Cruella de Vil.

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The only person who encouraged and understood the colourful internal world Amanda occupied for most of the time she wasn’t at school – and even when she was – was her Grandmother, who provided a wonderful environment during holiday periods for her to create short stories and draw page after page of cartoon characters in various settings. A beach painting won a local competition when she was about 10 years old.

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As childhood closed and other events impacted the psyche – the 1970’s – music and travel consumed her – and she moved back to Australia from New Zealand, where her formative years were spent.  Amanda travelled and worked in most States of Australia until she met the father of her two sons’. The couple were married in 1980 and became Light House Keepers between Victoria and Tasmania.

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With two babies under two, Amanda embraced motherhood and home duties by growing vegetables, collecting fresh eggs from the hens they kept, making jams, learning to milk a goat for her youngest son’s allergies and making tiny clothes on an old sewing machine, for her infants on Eddystone Point Light House Station: NE Tasmania. Both of her sons have ‘Lighthouse Keeper’ as their father’s occupation on their birth certificates.

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Sadly, her marriage didn’t last and she took her sons and found enough money to buy her first home at 29 ½ in 1986 for the 3 of them and started the pragmatic exercise of making ends meet for the next 20 or more years. And it wasn’t until her youngest son showed talent as an artist, writer and actor by 2004 that Amanda’s own interest in these areas was reignited.

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While her youngest son was at NIDA Amanda joined an online American writing group called www.Writing.Com  and began to write prolifically as a member on that site, submitting a number of flash fiction stories to daily prompts  with some of those stories successfully entered into external, prize-awarding competitions.  

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This led to Amanda having the confidence to produce a book on smoking, from a smoker’s point of view! Research on taxes from tobacco and comparisons with other pollutants were used amidst funny anecdotes and short stories and accompanied photo/graphic- creations by Mike Cook. This book was published in 2009 and sold through a website and by word of mouth. Amanda still has some copies which may be purchased on request. 

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These days, Amanda belongs to Mat Clarke’s writing collective known as WWC where she will continue to write and contribute to this group. While soldiering on as a mental health nurse in order to make a living, writing is her enduring passion