Non fiction

The garden of becoming: A botanically inspired guide to writing your memoir

This is a guide and how-to book on writing a personal memoir or life story.  It uses the metaphor of gardens and gardening as its structuring device. 

I have always loved plants, and enthusiastically gardened wherever I have lived.  My idea of a perfect holiday is a garden tour, combined with bookshop visits.  I’ve combined this deep love of gardening with my experience as an environmental historian to craft a book which invites reader to explore life writing in a very accessible and non-academic way.

This flower loving nation: A history of floristry and the cut flower trade in Australia

In addition to being a professional historian, I am also a qualified florist.  Sadly due to a back injury, I’m unable to work full time.  I work casually at a local florist to keep my hand in and show regularly at the Hobart Horticultural Society shows.

It seemed logical to combine my practical experience and my academic training to write the first history of the subject in the country.  Because it is the first, and requires many primary sources, progress is slow but sure.