Bronwyn HouldsworthWriters usually evolve from bookworms, and I was a bookworm from age 5. In primary school, an essay I wrote about Anzac Day won a silver cup and appeared in the local paper. Then, life intervened, putting a halt to my budding literary career. After shool, business college, and a job as a secretary, I joined the Navy as a Writer, a misleading description for what were, in essence, clerk-typists. Secretarial and clerical positions in private enterprise and the public service followed, and part-time study rewarded me with a BA Soc Sci, majoring in Politics and Sociology. In my spare time I wrote travel and history articles for newspapers and magazines. They were often illustrated with photos by my partner John, a professional photographer. Meanwhile, researching the family tree, I became obsessed with one mysterious branch. Details eluded me, until online resources came to the aid of my detective work. I discovered a host of amazing characters. Not convicts (I already had at least 3 in another family branch), not relatively recent immigrants (my mother's Argentinian parents), but an amazing cast of dukes, earls, baronets, governors, actors, writers, parsons, suffragettes, Academy Award winners, black sheep... How could I not be inspired to write about some of these characters? By now John and I were running a press photography business. My favourite assignments involved the documentation of listed buildings. I also worked in a museum. I attended the first conference of the Romance Writers of Australia and began to write fiction and enter competitions. A short story of mine appeared in an RWA anthology. Another was a finalist in a national magazine/publishing house competition. Two flash fiction stories and several book reviews were published in magazines. It's been an interesting journey. At last I've written the book of my heart, inspired by some of my mysterious eighteenth-century ancestors and love of history. I hope you enjoy The Heart Has Its Reasons. Read More Read Less