I am a first-time author, and The TJ-Split is my first published novel. I was born in the fifties and raised on tobacco farms in South Africa by wonderful parents. I completed school, fell in love and married too soon. This mistake resulted in a traumatic divorce after thirteen years. However, I remarried and left the country in 1992 with my family. Like so many other families, we strived to create better opportunities for the future of our four children. We lived in the USA, where I worked as a Real Estate Broker. As a South African, getting permanent residency in the US was tremendously complicated for us. My oldest daughter married an American, and due to circumstances, I had to leave her and my first four-month-old grandson behind. Since then, my family has been scattered worldwide. We became part of the same statistics and history of thousands of South African families.

Once in China, I started working as an English teacher and studied Psychology. I completed my PhD in 2005 while residing in England and continued my adult teaching career in Europe and the Netherlands. Years later, we relocated to New Zealand. To advance my adult teaching career, I was required to study for the level 6 Diploma in Adult Education at the Southern Institute of Technology in Invercargill. I worked as a teacher in NZ for a few years. Life happened, and I became a Licensed Diversional Therapist, designing activity types for dementia clients according to their cognitive and physical abilities. I have retired from this occupation and finally had the time to do what I have been passionate about for a long time. My passion for writing is what kept me afloat during tough times. I am grateful to call New Zealand my home for the past fifteen years. The silver lining of my experiences is that I am genuinely well-travelled. Further, I’m a total movie buff, a dog and cat lover, and I enjoy regularly swimming with my grandson or walking the Papamoa Beach trials with a friend to lower stress levels.