As a wild child growing up in rural New Zealand, I wanted to be a writer, or a naturalist. I didn't know I could be both.
I wrote stories and poems, and poured through scientific encyclopaedias. I read voraciously - poetry, stories, mythology, science, scripts - everything. Discovering great authors like Stephen Jay Gould, Oscar Wilde, T.S.Elliot, Enid Blighton, Dr van der Kolk, Tenessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, and drinking in movies and theatre.
Later I studied theatre and performed in London - earned a diploma in journalism, and a bachelors of natural science in the South Island of New Zealand - and a diploma in communications and a masters of counselling in Australia. I learned all about the natural world, and people, and theatre, and stories - especially stories. Because through everything I wrote.
I wrote: wildlife documentary scripts and pitches; flora and fauna encyclopaedia entries; short stories; corporate communications; feature scripts; newspaper articles; poetry; advertorials; , children's stories; technical documents; and wild children's books and rhymes under the pseudonym Mira Mee.
I am not a wild New Zealand country child anymore, but I am a writer and a naturalist, and so much more.
NB: I also wanted to be an All Black when I was about five. I didn't get to be an All Black - but I was a Southern Knight, an ice hockey player, and we won the inaugural Woman's Ice Hockey championships in Queenstown, New Zealand, which was pretty cool.
