I published my first romance in 2000, but my first published story appeared in a long defunct men’s magazine in 1972. It was “From Ambush”, a story with a western feel of a group of troopers hunting down a lone fugitive, first in an arid landscape and then in canyon country as he whittled down their numbers, one by one. Based on my own military training, it was only at the end that the reader realized the true nature of the story.

About that time I made a major career change to pursue a long term goal and my writing languished as the demands on my time grew.

A brief respite in 1975 began my transition to romance writing when I decided to write a full-length novel about life at sea on the Australian coastal ships. There was some vague intent to help my two daughters to understand the environment that was my home when I was away, but that didn’t persist long when I realized the difficulties of explaining a lifestyle so totally foreign. I needed someone who wasn’t a professional seafarer to be interested in the things my companions took for granted and a chance meeting one evening in Port Kembla gave me my storyteller.

It was the first time I’d attempted to write long passages from a female viewpoint and the complexity of the task fascinated me so much that I finished with ten separate versions of the tale, all typed on a portable typewriter and averaging over a hundred thousand words before the demands of my professional career caught up with me. It was fifteen years before I returned to writing.

By then I had a twenty-four/seven career in the offshore oil industry and realized I needed some form of stress breaker to continue at that pace, so I set aside one hour each day to write. A search for feedback sent me looking for competitions and there are more romance competition than any other. I won two national ones and this led to a contract for five books, all written in a very tight time frame and published as print paperbacks distributed only in Australia.

Retirement gave me the opportunity to parley that initial success into a ten year career and fourteen novel-length romances, plus a handful of magazine shorts, all written as Amy Gallow, the female pseudonym my first publisher insisted I use (taken from my wife’s middle and maiden names)

I’ve just released the first book under my own name and have two submissions current, one set in 1802 as a sea story and the other the second book in the series started by “The First Born”. All three have very strong romantic themes.

They say that it’s a long road that has no turnings; my road to writing romance has had more than its fair share.

These are the books of mine that are currently available and one person who comments will have their pick as a download.

The First Born at Eternal Press

A Soldier’s Woman at Eternal Press

A Fair Trader; Snow Drifter; and The Widow-Maker at Whiskey Creek Press