The Psyman

Born at the beginning of the 1960's, I have been fortunate enough to live through a golden age of development in our economy, society and technology. Following a dozen years of adversarial education at the hands of various religious institutions, I studied Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Western Australia, which inspired me to become a 'recovering Catholic'. In my last semester, I dropped out of university and scammed my way into an advertising agency because I wanted to wear jeans to work. I have been a copywriter and creative director ever since - a period now extending past 35 years. Through these years I wrote a lot of short stories and one or two longer efforts, but it wasn't until I met my wife Rachel in the late '90's that I finally found the peace and freedom to grow up and consider writing something substantial. Work continued to get in the way until the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, at which point the GFC and an understanding spouse combined to give me the time to start writing with a vengeance. The result of my wife's indulgence and my haphazard work schedule - I still do a fair bit of freelance copywriting work - has been four novels: two science fiction and two contemporary fiction. I've travelled extensively around Australia and the world, I take at least one overseas surf trip each year, and I love to document my travels with journals and photographs. Otherwise, I spend my days at home with our cat, writing and thinking, and taking great pleasure in being the 'hausfrau'; doing all our cooking, cleaning, shopping and other domestic chores. Noticing that the world is not always the bright, shiny place it appears to be, I have cultivated a keen interest in history, politics and current affairs over the last thirty years or so. The ideas I have developed around society are always present in my work.