“Your work shines, and your willingness to give tips and words of advice, to uplift as well as give constructive criticism, are worth a million.“
Juliana Ashe, author.
Hi, I’m an editor, author, artist, and publisher who helps writers shape their books into a publishable product of which they can be proud. I’m the managing editor at Alkira Publishing, and I bring decades of experience in the creative arts and contemplative practice to my editorial practice, offering a rare blend of technical precision and intuitive insight. My editorial work is rooted in deep listening that honours each author’s voice, and I don’t just edit, I also teach my clients to write well and support them at all stages of their writing journey. I share tips for authors on my Alkira Publishing & Editing You Tube Channel.
I’m the author of seven magical realism novels and several non-fiction books – on writing, meditation, spiritual-abuse recovery, and the Psychemagination series (a mix of mythical storytelling and introspective art). My magical realism and metaphysical fantasy fiction invites readers into symbolic, emotionally layered worlds where insight and imagination meet, while my non-fiction offers grounded tools for healing and creative growth. Before entering the publishing world, after an initial period as a teacher, I then spent twenty years in theatre in education, followed by five years teaching high school creative and performing arts.
I hold a NZ Trained Teacher’s Certificate, a Copy Editing and Proofreading Certificate from AOC (Australia), and coaching certificates in Art Therapy and Sylvotherapy (forest bathing).
Beyond the page, I’m a decorative artist, and a permaculture and meditation practitioner. I sell my craft work – masks and hats – from my Etsy Store. I live in an Australian rainforest on the South Coast of New South Wales with my husband and two Burmese cats. The Lyrebird Glade tiny house on my property provides tranquil accommodation for nature lovers.
I also create introspective AI art, animate it into music videos, and share it on my Psychemagination YouTube channel.
I’m passionate about creative expression and have been expressing myself creatively and helping others to do it in one way or another my whole life. With my background in the creative and performing arts, I know well the challenges of self-expression and living a creative life.
Whether I’m editing a manuscript, crafting a story, or creating visual art, my work is an invitation to reflect and grow. I believe in the power of story to awaken the heart and illuminate the inner world, and I’m here to help others bring their most authentic, meaningful work into the world.
My Editorial Vision
As an editor I love helping other authors to realise their dreams and write the best books they possibly can. I believe that everyone has a voice worth listening to and all stories have value, but they all need some kind of professional help to polish them until they shine. I also believe that new authors benefit from having someone who has walked the path before them to guide them in their writing journey. It’s helpful to know what pitfalls to avoid and which hills are worth climbing. A good guide can save us a lot of time and effort by stopping us wandering down dead-end paths or helping us out of sticky bogs, and they can inspire us by showing us the potential in our own work. It’s important to have someone that cares about you and your story and who can teach you how to achieve your best. That’s how I see my role with my editing clients, and that ability to teach and guide in a caring way is what makes me different from other editors.
My Writing Journey
I never meant to become a writer or an editor, but that’s where inspiration led me.
My first attempt at writing my first YA fantasy novel Lethal Inheritance wasn’t great. So I spent 5 years full time studying writing and editing, got professional help with my manuscript, rewrote the book 7 times and did 27 edits. When I finished it was so good that an agent picked it up. All four books in The Diamond Peak Series were initially published by an American publishing company.
My next book World Within Worlds was so unusual in style (magical realism with multiple narrative threads) that I didn’t bother to attempt the mainstream route to publication. Instead I created my own publishing company and learned to be a publisher. Publishing others grew from my desire to help my editing clients get the benefits of self-publishing while avoiding the pitfalls.
Since starting my writing journey in 2007, I’ve written 11 books (5 young adult, 2 adult, 4 non-fiction), and I began full time editing in 2013. Four of my novels have been awarded B.R.A.G Medallions and an Awesome Indies Book Awards Seal of Excellence for outstanding fiction. Now I spend most of my time helping authors make their books the best they can be. I also help some of my editing clients publish with my selective, author-funded publishing company Alkira Publishing .
I began my study of how to work with my mind in the early 1980s, and I have extensive experience in meditation and Tibetan Buddhist studies.
I wear fantasy style clothing because beautiful clothes deserve to be worn.
NZ Trained Teacher’s Certificate; Copy Editing and Proofreading Certificate, AOC (Australia); Art Life Coach Certification, Holistico, IPHM, CMA, CPD accredited.
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You can see my CV on my Linked in profile.
How it all began …
I was born on a New Zealand farm with a book in one hand, artists modelling clay in the other and a mind full of creative ideas and philosophical questions. I trained as a primary school teacher and taught in New Zealand for one year before moving to Australia. Childhood elocution lessons and life in Australia have removed most traces of my Kiwi accent, but when I say dance, it doesn’t rhyme with pants. Even so, I now call Australia home, particularly my little patch of rainforest in the Illawarra south of Sydney.
My uncontainable creativity, inability to sit still, and forays into modelling, dancing and acting, inspired me to leave my early career as a teacher for the gypsy life of a performer. For twenty years I helped to create Visual Theatre shows—I wrote scripts and made masks and costumes—and performed with Centrepiece Productions all over Australasia as a dancer, mime and clown. When my daughter (now a videographer and graphic designer) went to high school, I gave it up for the more sedentary life of a creative arts teacher in a local high school where I stayed for five years.
Early one morning when I should have been asleep, scenes of a girl battling demons while climbing a mountain in search of her mother appeared in my mind like a movie and filled my heart with inspiration. The story demanded to be written with such a passion that I left my teaching job and, while supporting myself with casual teaching jobs, spent the next five years writing The Diamond Peak Series and studying writing and editing. Lethal Inheritance, the first in that series, scored an agent and subsequently the series was published by a US publisher. And that’s how my career in publishing began.
My writing mixes fantasy, reality, metaphysics, action and romance into genre-bending experiences. I’m fascinated by perception and the nature of creativity, identity and reality itself. I paint my words with a light touch and aim to inspire readers to work with their mind and deal with their own life issues in a positive way.
I’m lucky enough to live in a rainforest paradise …
… and I share it with a lovely husband and a couple of cheeky Burmese cats.
This picture is of George, my first Burmese. He was essentially Twitchet the talking cat from the Diamond Peak Series, and there are many funny videos of him and my present cats in a playlist on my You Tube channel.
Unfortunately George died of a snake bite when he was only 2 years old. I was devastated! My present kitties are Smokey Loki and Mani Moon, and their cat enclosure is much more secure than the one from which George escaped.