Noelene Jenkinson - Australian Author

I'm one of 4 million Australian baby boomers. I grew up in a small country town in the heartland of the Victorian Wimmera wheatbelt of Australia. I am now settled in a nearby city, so I have lived in the region all my life. The first typewriter I used was an old black Remington in an agricultural farming office where my Dad worked. I typed my mother letters and took them home, but the laptop is now my equipment of choice. I married in the swinging Seventies, we have two adult daughters, and two adorable grandchildren.

I use Australian settings for my stories and, from the first, my novels have always had a strong romantic element and whether modern or historicals, are women's fiction, so I like a positive or hopeful ending. Joining the Romance Writers of Australia has enabled me to hone my writing skills and obtain publication. Like all apprentice authors, I have collected my share of rejections but now have five published novels with a sixth due for release in August 2010. See Books for details.

As well as the modern era, history is also a great love for me and I am planning a series of Australian sagas plus others set in the Middle Ages, another historical era that interests me. My office has one wall of bookshelves, all groaning with Australian history and medieval research books, and a huge TBR [to-be-read] pile of novels in all time periods and settings from the Middle Ages to World War 2. Plus a step ladder to get to them all.

My other interests are crocheting afghan rugs that I donate to charity; occasionally pottering in my native garden [fortunately it's fairly self-sufficient]; in recent years I discovered cardmaking through my daughter's interest in scrapbooking; and I love crosswords, mahjong and solitaire. Two years ago I bought a new electronic digital organ keyboard which has rekindled my love of music.

Another major interest of mine is genealogy and over the past 20 years I have researched and published three family history books. Two were my own paternal German ancestors of HINCH (originally HINZ) from Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany, and PETRASS from Gross Schmollen, Prussia [now south west Poland], which took about 10 years combined, and my latest project was my husband's JENKINSON Irish ancestors from Rathdrum, County Wicklow, on which I worked for 8 years.