If you're looking for a bright, young, highly polished author then I'm afraid we are all out of luck. I am old, irritable and relatively ugly. I've lived most of my life in the bush and I've tried my hand at many different things over the years. Perhaps the most enjoyable, although for me, not very rewarding in the financial sense, was opal mining around Lightning Ridge, in northern New South Wales. As a young man I'd always enjoyed an entertaining story and in my less lucid moments I'd even contemplated trying to write one. It was many years later, with a little more time on my hands, before I finally made the effort. My first story, although read by a relatively small number of people, attracted enough favourable comment to encourage a second. I write primarily to entertain but even a small contribution towards paying the bills would be a much appreciated bonus.