Cirrus@Austlit

'There’s a story I’ve often told over the years, about a cross roads I came to at a difficult point in my life many years ago. In this story I describe how, as a young single mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, I made some important changes in my life. I’d tell this story during orientation week at Southern Cross University (SCU) where I have taught creative writing for more than two decades. As part of a pitch to expectant groups of new students I’d describe how, after a being a musician in a rock band, I needed to get a proper job and how I’d applied to come to university so as to do just that. My juxtaposition of rock musician and proper job was designed to make the students laugh, and to put them at ease. Then I’d tell them about my second career, – the trajectory from undergraduate student to teacher of creative writing – hoping that I might inspire some of the new students to take up a writing life of one sort or other. Over the last two decades, I’ve taught creative writing to thousands of students. Not all have become published writers, but the majority, I would hope, have learnt a set of writing skills, from the team of teachers in the writing department at SCU, that have assisted them greatly in articulating their chosen worlds through the written word.' (Introduction)