On the west coast of Scotland about seven miles south of Glasgow sits the village of Linwood (population about 1100 people). This is where I was born. I lived there until immigrating to Canada with my husband and two young children in 1964.

The first house we rented in Galt, Ontario had a large basement filled with boxes and boxes of books – mainly classics. Dickens, Shakespeare, The Rubaiyat, Homer, Zola and hundreds more. The owner of the house was a retired academic and when we left that place to live in our own house, he gifted me with as many books as I could carry.

So, during the long Canadian winters, I lived in the world of people like Becky Sharpe, Pip, and Odysseus.

Initially my writing life was born out of therapy to help me work through the mourning time after the death of my two-year-old son, Joseph. But I found that I enjoyed the process, and the challenges, involved in crafting a piece of work.

After moving to Australia in 1974, a second, third and fourth career in private and public enterprises curtailed my writing time and opportunities but my love of reading the classics never wavered. So when I enrolled in a course at Adelaide University it was with great excitement and pleasure I found myself studying Great Texts of Western Civilisation. This included Milton, Baudelaire and the passion of my literary life; Joyce. I loved every minute and every challenge of these under-graduate years.

As there was no supervisor for my continued study of Joyce’s work in the English Department I defaulted into doing Honours and Master’s years in creative writing.

The seed for Siege of Contraries was first planted during my Honours year in a tutorial with Prof Tom Shapcott, who was then the chair of the creative writing department of Adelaide University. He once brought a small rusty tobacco tin to class. The contents of the tin were: Two leave passes written in German one typewritten and one hand written – the handwritten one was dated towards the end of the war when the German war machine was disintegrating.

The questions that came into my mind: How did these bits of paper arrive at Adelaide in 2003? Who was the original owner? What was his fate? And so with Prof Shapcott’s gentle encouragement the story of Karl, Patrick and Harry took shape.

In the end, they were only three young men who’d landed amongst the muck and gore of the trenches and for a time Fate arranged that their lives would be entangled.

In September 2011, at the South Australian Writers’ Festival, my Novella, Siege of Contraries won the People’s Choice Award. I felt stunned and honoured that my three young men had touched the hearts of so many readers. The sequel is currently at first draft stage. It is a love story and a migrant story placed in England and Australia. The working title is, Caitlin, A Love Story. Hopefully, it will be launched at the end of this year.

The novel Pilgrim Souls is currently with Ginninderra Press being prepared for publication early this year.

Three short stories were published in anthologies in 2011.

• September: Legacy in Where’s Pluto published by Wirra Wirra Vineyards
• December: Yelta and Shadowland in The Heart of Port Adelaide published by Ginninderra Press