Natasha Lester
It took me a while to do something about the dream I’d always had of being a writer. But when I finally quit my job as a Brand Manager for Maybelline Cosmetics and went back to uni to study creative writing, lots of things happened which made me believe I’d taken the right step. The first piece of writing I ever sent off to a journal for publication - a poem - was accepted. It was the best $100 I’d ever earned. This is easy, I remember thinking!
Of course, it wasn’t always that easy. But I was lucky enough to win the TAG Hungerford Award for Fiction and thus receive a publishing contract for my first book, What is Left Over, After. My second book, If I Should Lose You, was published in 2012.
In between all that, I’ve had three children. Nowadays I write while the kids are sleeping, which is, of course, never for long enough.