I was born in Lismore, N.S.W., Australia in June 1953.
Prior to starting on An Expat in Thailand, I had written a fiction manuscript that I completed in Bangkok in 1997.
The idea of writing fiction had never occurred to me before, yet on the King’s Birthday, December 5th of 1995, I suddenly had an urge to write. To write what – I had no idea. The strangest things happen at times, and this was one of those times. After a leisurely afternoon shopping for groceries I headed home to the small studio apartment off Rama III Road I had moved into back in June. I sat up that night with unintelligible Thai TV soap operas playing in the background as I contemplated my foray into the world of literature. Nothing. My mind was a complete blank.
That night I had a dream, and in that dream, the characters that would become such an important part of my life emerged. I remember waking and writing down the names Rilms and David. I also remember thinking this was a story about Rilms, the American expatriate Vietnam war vet who now called Thailand home, but later it changed to be a story of love between teenage David and a Thai girl named Nee. You can read more about the novel "From Nowhere to Nee" by clicking here and the full manuscript is online to read if you have the patience to read from a computer screen for that length of time.
Since leaving Thailand in December 2000, I have lived in Brisbane, Australia - Phuket, Thailand - and now Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I spent much of 2005 living in Phuket and Khao Lak, arriving shortly after the 2004 Asiam Tsunami.
