{"id":380059,"date":"2021-08-13T16:08:05","date_gmt":"2021-08-13T06:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bookwritingcoach.com.au\/?page_id=380059"},"modified":"2022-09-12T10:51:37","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T00:51:37","slug":"about-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bookwritingcoach.com.au\/about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t

The personal stuff!<\/h2>\n

I grew up in New Zealand and like many NZers I’ve travelled a fair bit-to England, most of southern Europe, a small part of northern Europe, the States, South America, the Pacific. I first left NZ as a 20-year-old and travelled to England by ship-yes!-via Fiji, the Panama Canal, Acapulco, and New York. What an adventure those weeks were! Starting off in London, I lived and worked there for a few months, then went on the road: France, Italy, and Spain. Over-wintering in Spain, I met my future husband. We travelled together throughout southern Europe, then moved to NZ and alternated between living and working in NZ and Spain for several years.<\/p>\n

I trained as a journalist in my late teens, and for many years had a crazy variety of jobs-journalism, office work, cleaning, retail, as an English teacher, teaching Spanish-including to the then-future NZ prime minister, Helen Clark!<\/p>\n

Ever the late starter (too busy travelling), in my 30s I settled into studying and completed a bachelor’s followed by a master’s in English & Spanish linguistics.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Gail\n\t

Then followed several years working as a documentation consultant and business analyst in the IT sector, followed by 15 years in my own business as a consultant to corporates like Telecom, Air NZ, and Vodafone, working with IT nerds and end-users.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, the family moved to the Gold Coast, Australia. I took a year off work and wrote my first (and so far only!) novel, which took me many years to publish (2019), as I then became a solo parent and work was the priority.<\/p>\n\t

Becoming an editor<\/h2>\n

This seemed a natural extension of my lifelong love of words. In 2008, I embraced the challenge of being in the first cohort of editors to qualify as an Accredited Editor (AE), the industry benchmark for professional editors in Australia and NZ through IPEd (the Institute of Professional Editors).<\/p>\n

And I haven’t looked back! Finally finding my passion, I’ve been helping first-time and existing writers ever since, through:<\/p>\n