My love for words started at a very young age. For as long as I can remember I’ve enjoyed dreaming them up, arranging them, inventing and shaping them into poems, songs and - of course - stories! Currently I live and create in the lakeside town of Wanaka, New Zealand: famous for its magnificent landscapes, beautiful walks and one of the world’s most photographed trees.

BOOKS
Writing and publishing picture books has been my main creative focus for the past 20 years. Throughout that time I’ve been truly fortunate to collaborate with some awesome artists and a handful of the world’s leading publishers, including Harper Collins, Candlewick Press (USA), Editions Milan (France), BookGoodCome (South Korea), and Carlsen Verlag in Germany. Recently, I took a step back from my independent-publisher’s role to make more time for writing and creating new material. My new ‘home’ is with Scholastic, who have published my two latest titles with more books in development!

OTHER WRITING
Aside from picture books I spend a lot of time writing songs and, more recently, poetry. I can happily while away hours playing around with melody and meaning, cadence and rhythm - whether composing a tune, writing a poem or editing a story. When it comes to poetry I dabble with free verse but my true passion is more traditional fixed rhyme. I love the challenge of finding interesting meters and unusual rhymes to reflect the overall feeling of a piece. Recently I started work on my first (adult) novel - a whole new paradigm of imagination (and discipline!).

For a handful of short stories and a couple of books that have seen their days in print come and go, check out my blog.