I was born in Toronto and, from a young age, had a thirst for storytelling from performing characters I'd invented or writing short stories about mysterious creatures lurking in the basement. But I chose a more pragmatic path, completing a business degree, and later a PhD in Health Policy, spending over a decade researching mental health, stigma and inequality across Australia, Canada and Sweden.

I moved countries, shifted between research topics, and became a mother along the way. But the common thread was always storytelling.

My return to creative writing happened rather unexpectedly. Three months postpartum with my second son, in the middle of Melbourne's extended lockdown, my doula asked me to write my birth story for a book she was writing. It felt impossible, like a task that could not be done while homeschooling a five-year-old and cradling a newborn. But I wrote it anyway, balancing my iPad while breastfeeding my baby, and tapping out lines one-handed.

And something sparked. The writing didn't drain me. It brought me back to life.

I kept going. Journaling. Morning Pages. Little sketches of scenes. Then I got a spark of an idea for a novel. I wrote in stolen moments on maternity leave for my third son. Bird by Bird, as Anne Lamott would say. I scrapped the first manuscript at 20,000 words, but the ideas kept coming until I found the story that became No One Told Her It Would Be Like This. It's an upmarket historical novel about a 1950s housewife, who, after years of longing for a child she cannot have, is thrust into motherhood overnight when tragedy leaves her caring for her toddler niece.

Along the way, I started Femme Ink, a place where I explore matrescence, identity and creativity through seven core pillars. I'm interested in how creativity helps women make sense of who they've been, who they're becoming, and what they want next, especially in the messy, transformative years of motherhood.

Everything I do — writing, workshops, facilitation — is about helping women rediscover voice, agency and belonging, not through productivity hacks or perfection, but through story.