I’m a country kid, born and raised in rural New South Wales. Nicknamed snowy because of my blond hair, I liked being outside and dreaming of dinosaurs.

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History and storytelling have been passions of mine for as long as I can remember. From writing computer games on the Apple IIE to playing Sid Meier’s Civilization II  to reading antique texts and James A Michener novels I’ve always been interested in the storied world around and before me.

 

University failed to train me out of these behaviours. Instead, I ended up doing majors in both history and archaeology at the Australian National University before going on to complete first-class honours in history. Then I worked in Canberra for a while in a range of roles, including a stint for a software company and a commissioned research project for the National Archives of Australia.

 

By which time I had the history itch so bad I wanted to get my PhD. Pursuing this opportunity took me to Hobart, where I was enrolled as a doctoral candidate at the University of Tasmania, ultimately going on to complete a thesis on the origins of England’s poor laws and becoming a doctor of history. I was fortunate enough to do research in the UK on a couple of occasions, and even got invited to Cambridge University to talk about what I’d found along the way.

 

In the meantime, I started tutoring and lecturing, did plenty of paid research work, and started my own pivot to writing about Australian history as well as continuing my medieval and early modern threads. Oh, and I also did a Graduate Certificate in Archaeology from Flinders University on the side and started working as a sometime consultant archaeologist.

 

Since then, I’ve published a lot. I continue to research and write and still dream of dinosaurs.