BIOGRAPHY

Stephen is quite new to the world of writing and self-publishing books. Before taking medical retirement in 2018, he was a primary school teacher for over thirty years, having taught in Adelaide and several South Australian country towns including Port Pirie, Ceduna and Port Lincoln. He also taught in Canada for a year and a couple of short stints in South Korea.

Stephen has always been an avid reader and book collector, owning an extensive personal library of books. He also majored in Children’s Literature as part of his teaching degree, and shared his love of literature with his students.

Stephen’s real passion however is yacht racing, which he started at seven years of age. He has competed in twenty five Adelaide to Port Lincoln races and also two Sydney to Hobart races. Unfortunately Stephen can’t participate in big boat sailing anymore, but now he sails his growing fleet of remote control yachts. Needless to say, sailing is an important feature in his children’s novels.

In February 2016 Stephen’s life took a big turn when he was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer (MDS/MPN RARS-T), which resulted in him needing a Bone Marrow Transplant in November 2019. This procedure was gruelling, with him enduring long stints in hospital, various complications, navigating COVID with a compromised immune system and a long period of convalescence. As part of this recovery period, Stephen began writing his first children’s novel The Secret of the Lighthouse in 2022.  Not anything he had planned to do, literally he awoke one night with the fully formed story outline in his head, and for the next few months he worked everyday on writing his first children’s novel.

Since self-publishing The Secret of the Lighthouse in 2023, Stephen has now written and self-published the follow up novel, The Lighthouse Revisited.  He has also published the story of his maternal grandfather’s time as a prisoner of war, during WW2.

Stephen is currently working on several other books.  Not Dead Yet!  chronicles his experience with blood cancer and the bone marrow transplant process. Unfortunately this is even more poignant, as he recently found out his blood cancer has relapsed, so a few new chapters have been necessary.  Sam’s War is another children’s novel he’s working on, which looks at a young boy discovering his great-grandfather’s war diary.