About Me

KATHY LITTLEMORE

 aka THE BUNYIP LADY...REVEALS

My parents took delivery of a bookworm disguised as their youngest child. Nourished with a diet of thick library books, and delicious words, I devoured them voraciously. Impressing my first grade teacher with an expansive vocabulary, I began creating my own stories. My lazy seventh grade teacher squashed my enthusiasm, refusing to read anything longer than two pages. An epic essay, Reins, Rogues and Rough Riding of some 12 pages languished, unread. His cruel refusal to read this work tortured my creative soul and imagination. 

Hungry for more books, I “bookwormed” my way into the adult section of the local library while still in primary school.

High school introduced inspiring teachers with drive. Writing a novel had never occurred to me until an English teacher asked the class who was writing one, as if she expected the whole class would be. Astoundingly, one girl raised her hand. She was not especially good at English, but she was writing a novel for pleasure. Incredible! I was still just reading them under the desk during class. The bookworm addiction was so strong.

Letter writing took on grand proportions when my sister moved to the other side of the country. Multiple part letters winged across the continent because the pages were too thick and too numerous to fit in a single envelope. Many years later I penned the first of many “Letters to the Editor”.

Work, heavy text books and business studies with the University of Southern Queensland, took its toll on my creative juices. They even slowed down the bookworm a bit.

Nearly two decades after high school finished, a tiny advertisement in the weekend newspaper for a Diploma in Travel Writing reignited my writing spark. I cut it out and read it and reread it, and walked around with it in my pocket and hugged it close to me like a delectable secret. I enrolled and now, hiding away in a folder is my Diploma of Freelance Travel Writing & Photography from the Australian College of Journalism. Along with a highly commended in the inaugural, Australian Writers’ Marketplace essay competition, it is the perfect qualification for a travel junkie.

Empowered with new confidence, no magazine in the country was immune to a query letter from me. I did not review glamorous hotels and exquisite restaurants. I wove fishing tales, commented on the share market, shared my exploration of the great Australian outdoors and revealed my hard “learned” photography tips. Despite travelling to far flung places around the globe, it was always Australia I was compelled to write about. 

Recently, I discovered I have a dedicated following! You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard that my readers have been waiting for a book. I simply had no idea.

Well, a book is coming out in December 2015. It is not a travel story, nor a novel though I secretly covet having a bestselling novel at the airport bookstand. ABC Bunyip Saves the Big Black Boogie Swamp is a children’s picture book. Yes…I shocked myself too, but I hope it will inspire a new generation of bookworms.

Bookworms rock!