About me

A snapshot of my life and work

When I was ten years old, my father gave me a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. I would look up a word, then get sidetracked by others. Each led me to another, revealing words and worlds I never knew existed. I didn’t know it then, but language had me in its lure. It didn’t even click when I won prose and poetry prizes in school. By the time I reached university, the world was in such turmoil that I felt compelled to study other subjects to better understand the changes taking place around me. I graduated with first class honors in anthropology and a minor in history from the University of Western Australia in 1971.

Since then I have lived and worked in Belgium, Canada, India and the United States — in an inner-city ghetto of Chicago, an aboriginal community in northwest Australia, and numerous Indian villages — and visited 35 other countries. My work in community and organizational development honed many skills, from group facilitation and fundraising to public relations and copywriting.

But it wasn’t until I was working for an international non-governmental organization in the mid-1980s and was asked to edit a volume on rural development that my love of language was rekindled. This triggered a passion that had lain dormant for more than twenty years. I took a course with a leading British writing school and the words began to flow. Since then, I have had nearly 200 articles published in books, journals, magazines, and newspapers, I have edited four books, and am working on three of my own.

My love of words stems from their power to communicate ideas, express emotions, and build bridges between people in ways that few other things can. I am drawn to the way words tell stories and how transforming these stories can be when told well. To this end, I am now focusing my efforts on helping others articulate and share their life stories.

For more information, go to: http://www.linkedin.com/in/wordswallah

Selected Writings