About KA  

I was born in the Mallee,  the fourth unwanted daughter of a dirt-poor Mallee farmer.   Life was tough. 

 

 But for me,  it was a lot tougher than for my three older sisters.

 

I was born with severe dyslexia [this word, as per the dissertation on the left, was coined in 1867. But  at the time of my birth, and for twenty years afterwards, was unknown in most of Australia.]

Because I failed to read, write or spell throughout prep, grade one and grade two, up to almost eight years old, everyone thought I was a slow learner or just plain dumb. 

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When I was kept down for a second year, in grade three, because of my poor literacy skills, I remember feeling so ashamed that I was such a dub arse and seriously resented; no, that's not correct, I was as mad as hell about being the only kid kept down to repeat Grade three. I was mad at myself for not being able to figure out nor hear the sounds of the phonics that were fundamental to learning to read and, of course, to spell well. 

 

But the good thing was that I was smart enough to realise that somehow I had to figure out how all this phonics shit worked so that, by hook or by crook, I was going to be able to read and spell like a champion. 

 

At home, we had virtually no reading material, apart from the daily papers, delivered once a week, our prayer books and a few comics. So each night, I would sit at the kitchen table and try and read the newspaper whilst mum was preparing tea, spelling out the words to her that I didn't know and write them in one of last year's school books so I would remember them. Even when I was in the old six-foot drop toilet where, because of my illness, I spent a large part of my time, I would try and read the squares of the newspaper that were cut up to use as toilet paper. 

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Despite my latent introduction to the world of writing, I have been very fortunate to be gifted with an extremely good memory and the ability to remember what I read verbatim when in exams.

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As well, my pigheaded determination stands me in good stead until this very day, and as a late learner, it and my great memory were the things that taught me to read, write and become an avid wordsmith which helped me to become, by grade six, top of my class, most of the time in spelling and all my other subjects,  and capable of passing year twelve, winning a scholarship to  La Trobe University,' After which I trained as a primary school teacher, who taught for many years as a relieving teacher throughout the southern Mallee.  I started reading and writing poetry in high school and was a great lover of Chaucer and Shakespeare. in spite of my dyslexia I have written four full-length novels each around 90 to 98,000 words each as below:

            * 'After Dark Comes Light.' A personal expose of 23 years of domestic violence in my first marriage

              * 'Magpies in the Dust,'

              * 'West of Sunrise,'

              * 'On the Wings of a Dragon Fly'.

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The other problem that caused me a lot of grief was that I was born with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, a permanent, lifetime, autoimmune inflammatory disease that impacted my childhood with constant ill health, tonsilitis, extreme tiredness,  no energy, insomnia, and constant childhood sicknesses. As per the article on the right, Hashimoto was diagnosed in 1907, but when I was finally very sick and diagnosed when I was twenty-one, little was known by the medical fraternity from then until about 2015, when an enormous amount of research and publicity occurred.  A true story: In 2000 when I told someone that I had Hashimoto's they were shocked and asked me,

                 'Is that a sexually transmitted disease?'

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Suffice it to say that I have never allowed being sick or feeling tired, stiff, sore or downright unwell, to stop me from doing anything. I  have had three children, [a graphic designer, a teacher and a research scientist specializing in oncology,] became a teacher myself, a farmer's wife who helped out on the farm I've travelled the world a lot of the time on my own,  like when I went on an art crawl of the world and drove myself across Canada and the USA, on my own, in a 1974 Ford Econovan,  before returning to OZ to own,  and run, my own art Galleries in Berwick and Toorak. I have also taught art to private students for forty years, have been involved as a professional artist in the art world for forty-five years, have been an Archibald entrant a number of times and have been in other prestigious exhibitions all around Australia and overseas. I have sold paintings to Queen Elizabeth's portraitist and had afternoon tea with Robert, the most prolific and exceptional leading Canadian wildlife artist in the world.

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 I NOW HAVE A WONDERFUL LOVING, CARING, HUSBAND, PAUL, SIX  BEAUTIFUL GRANDIES, I LOVE TO BITS,  MY THREE CHILDREN ALL GROWN UP, AND TWO GREAT STEPSONS.

 

I LIVE BY THE SEA WITH PAUL IN OUR OWN HOME

I HAVE MY OWN ART STUDIO, LOTS OF PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES AND CRAFT

AND A GREAT STUDY FOR MY NOVEL WRITING WITH ALL THE WHISS BANG WRITING MOD CONS !!

                                               

                   HOW LUCKY AM  I ?