Growing up in cold-war Germany near the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm, I loved riding my bike through dark forests murmuring with fairytales. A curious and introverted kid, my journal has always been my best friend; becoming a writer was my childhood dream.

At school I was praised for my eloquent writing assignments, but math was beyond me and high school a struggle. When a teacher declared that I would never speak English, I dropped out of school and learned Italian instead, making beds in a seaside resort on the Adriatic Coast.

Holding the hands of the dying in my first full-time job in an old people’s home, taught me that life was a more effective teacher than school, but I knew I had to finish school if I wanted a career. And so I did, except I wasn’t ready for a career.

I took odd jobs and traveled widely, before enrolling at university on the other side of the world, in Australia, as a mature age student. Though I didn’t feel very mature.

Travel had opened my mind, and made me fluent in English and Italian — and not so fluent in a few other languages — but I was no longer at home in any language. Academic writing became the obvious home for my long, Germanic sentences; teaching became my life-long passion. ­But I never lost sight of my childhood dream.

I always considered myself a late bloomer, having started primary school a year after my peers. Apparently, I was an absent-minded dreamer. Recently, at the now officially mature age of sixty, I learned there’s another explanation. I grew up neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.

Suddenly, it makes sense that I should have hyper-focused on writing a PhD, getting distracted with alternative careers as copy and travel writer, writing coach and yoga teacher,

In the end, it took a global pandemic, becoming stranded, alone, in remote Far North Queensland, Australia, to write the book I’ve always wanted to write. A book that tells a story about life’s struggles, written from the heart with a pinch of humour. I hope you’ll enjoy it!