Michelle Douglas

Making up stories has always been one of my passions. I received my first rejection letter at the age of eight for Keri the Koala Baby, and I have been writing ever since. A love of literature led me to major in English at the University of Newcastle, Australia. I have worked an assortment of jobs. Everything from waitress at a wedding convention centre (where the staff oohed and aahed over fairytale wedding dresses) to answering the complaints line at a call centre for a bank (where the staff didn't ooh and aah over fairytale wedding dresses). All of which have provided me with endless ideas (and characters!) for stories. My own happy-ever-after came in 1998 when I eloped to England with my husband Greg. We were married in Westminster - the town hall not the Abbey - lived on tinned soup for a month so we could afford to spend our wedding night in The Dorchester then flew out the next day to honeymoon in Paris. The sheer heady romance of it all made me wonder if I could breathe life into such encounters on the page. And I have not looked back. You will usually find me staring off into the middle-distance, pen in hand, and scrawling away furiously to bring characters to life. I am a sucker for happy endings, heroines who have a secret stash of chocolate, and heroes who know how to laugh. I am currently enrolled in a Creative Writing Masters at the University of Newcastle, fighting a losing battle with my jungle of a garden, and trying to keep my doughnut addiction in check.