A.J. Sendall

Since I left England in 1979, I've travelled widely, collecting experiences, people, and places as I did so. From the blood-soaked streets of Kampala, the polluted dust bowls of the Sahara, or the pristine ice floes of the Antarctic, I've gathered and filed them away. Some have recently squeezed through the bars of insecurity and are now at large in the pages of my novels.

Although I grew up in Norfolk, UK, I never felt truly at home until I lived in Australia, and that is no doubt the reason my first published novels are set there. All of my books this far have some element of fact in them. It's hard for any writer to not include events from their life. Our experiences shape our thoughts and hence the words and actions of our characters. I sometimes wish I'd become a novelist earlier in life, but then if I had, I wouldn't have the range of characters and events that I draw on.

I now live quietly in a converted Georgian barn in Northumberland with three French hens, two Mexican dogs, two Irish cobs, and a mermaid who I found on a deserted beach in Bequia.