Writer says family motto: hard work brings luck

A writer reflects that her family motto — "It’s amazing how lucky you get if you work really hard" — shaped her life from early jobs to a career as a novelist. She describes parents who left school early, worked as a public servant and a secretary, and prioritised education for their children.

Through school she worked in a department store, a health food store, a ship chandlers, as a gardener and wrote a column for the Hobart Mercury as her first paid writing job. Travelling in Asia and Europe, she took a series of practical jobs — pulling beers, waiting tables, cleaning hotel rooms, running a youth hostel, planting trees, picking grapes and herding goats — learning to work to fund her adventures and urging her children, friends and students to commit to what they love.

She spent years in advertising as a copywriter, later becoming a novelist who still meets deadlines and finds satisfaction in crafting books. Money was not her primary motivation; she cites love of the work and unpaid contributions such as parenting, volunteering, reading manuscripts, baking, preserving food and keeping house as their own remuneration.

She says creative work often requires extra effort for women, noting recent statistics from the Stella prize show that 47% of women (compared with just 17% of men) report their creative work is restricted by caring responsibilities.

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