A former occupational therapist, I’m passionate about writing inclusive picture books that capture the joy of childhood through imaginative and nature-based play. I love writing in rhyme and collaborating with illustrators and the publishing team to create memorable picture books for children and their families.

I’m excited to have several new titles being published over the coming years. Please do follow along on Instagram and here on my website, as all of these lovely projects unfold!

Please click here for reviews of all of my children’s picture books to date.

THE CHRISTMAS TREE CATASTROPHE (2025)

It’s Christmas Eve, and the baubles are bickering over the best spots on the Christmas tree, when an unexpected visitor appears. A tree-toppling catastrophe seems certain … unless the decorations can set aside their differences and work together? From the talented and award-winning duo, Emma Bowd and Matt Shanks, comes a rollicking festive tale full of humour and heart – and more than a tiny bit of tinsel!

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I’m SO excited to share this fun Christmas Eve story, which was inspired by our mischievous family cat, Raffles, from my childhood! Please click here for a peek behind-the-scenes at how Matt and I created our picture book.

Please do join us for a Christmas StoryWalk in Melbourne’s Carlton Gardens on Sunday 14th December – we thank Geography Victoria, City of Melbourne Libraries, Readings Books and CBCA Vic Branch for this wonderful opportunity for our story to be shared in such a special outdoor activity with children and their families. Please click here for registration.

We are very grateful to the CBCA Reading Time Review team for these two wonderful book reviews of The Christmas Tree Catastrophe: Please CLICK HERE

BIG thanks to everyone who came along to our Book Launch at Readings, St Kilda – we had so much fun!

Matt and I had a lot of fun designing a Christmas Cat Crown craft activity for you, too! You can find it in the BOOK CRAFT section of my website, where it’s ready and waiting for you to download. I hope you have as much fun making your Christmas Cat Crowns as we did!

THIS IS MY HAPPY PLACE (2024)

Do you have a special Happy Place,

where a smile swims over the whole of your face?

Is it tied to a tingly taste or smell?

Or sight or sound or touch? Do tell!

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THIS IS MY HAPPY PLACE celebrates the people, places and things that bring us joy. 😃 CLICK HERE to see a video of MY Happy Place! I had a lot of fun writing this feel-good picture book for Early Years and Primary School children (and their families!), which invites us to think about where our Happy Places are, and encourages us to spend more time in them❣️ Incorporating the ‘senses’ with SEL, it offers children a lovely conversation starter with friends/siblings, parents/carers, teachers, Wellness Educators, School Counsellors and Welfare Officers in SSSO roles.

Since the book’s release, I’ve loved seeing children engage in lively conversations about what makes them happy, and identifying with one or more of the ‘happy places’ in our book. In a complex and often overwhelming modern world, thinking about our happy places and spending more time in them, is a really positive and nourishing thing to do. And I’m so proud that our book champions this.

Please follow this link to a DISCUSSION GUIDE on how I have used This Is My Happy Place in my interactions with children during my author school visits, along with feedback that I have received from parents, teachers and healthcare/wellness professionals.

🥰🌈💚🌼🎵 I really enjoyed co-creating this little slice of joy with the fabulous illustrator @jenkhatun (you can read more about Jen and me here), our most excellent editor Coral, book design supremo Sasha @studio.beekman (who also masterminded the glorious cover of THE DAY YOU WERE BORN🌻😍) and all the team at Affirm Press .

Here’s some pics from our joyous Book Launch in Melbourne on the 20th March – International Day of Happiness 😃 – with the lovely folk at Sandringham Library (Bayside Libraries) and my incredible local indie bookstore @thesaurusbooks  🥳 My huge gratitude to Thesaurus Books for your wonderful window display and ongoing hand-selling and all-round amazingness, which 100% contributed to our book being your No 1 Bestseller!

BIG thanks to the following picture book reviewers for these wonderful REVIEWS of our book – Little Darlings, CBCA Vic Branch, StoryLinks, Kids’ Book Review , Good Reading Magazine and Primary School Teacher, Mr Fischer (LOVE his ‘Reading Response’ classroom activity for Prep/Foundation students):

THE DAY YOU WERE BORN (2023)

Every single day of every single year,

a precious child is born to cherish and to cheer.

With hope-filled hearts we marvel at them all –

the brave, the quiet, the loud and the small.

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A modern twist on the classic nursery rhyme, ‘Monday’s Child’, THE DAY YOU WERE BORN is our love letter to children – celebrating their unique qualities and the special light they bring to our lives.

You can read more about how I came to write this very special rhyming picture book here: Writing From The Heart.

I’m delighted to share THE DAY YOU WERE BORN, my new picture book with the gifted and award-winning illustrator Hilary Jean Tapper and the incredible publishing team at Affirm Press! Available now, in all of your favourite bookstores, libraries and online. Since being published, our book has been incredibly warmly received, with many lovely reviews, and it has even been a No 1 Bestseller at Thesaurus Books, Melbourne! It has also been my great joy to share our book in several bookshop Story Times across Metropolitan Melbourne, as well as ELC and Primary school classrooms.

WONDERFUL SHOES (2021)

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WONDERFUL SHOES is a joyful celebration of everyday play, through the eyes of our tiniest humans, who know exactly where to find the best toys in the world! Delightful verse and vibrant illustrations shine a light on the timeless tip-tapping click-clacking fun to be had, when little feet find big shoes. It is now available in all good bookstores, giftshops and online.

I’m humbled and thrilled in equal measure that my debut picture book, WONDERFUL SHOES was awarded a CBCA 2022 ‘Notable Book’ in the Early Childhood Category, of the Book of the Year Awards, by The Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA). It has been such a joyful collaboration with the award-winning Australian illustrator Tania McCartney and the wonderful (and also recent award-winning) team at Windy Hollow Books.

An excerpt from the CBCA Judge’s Report for Wonderful Shoes:

“It is a joyous celebration of uninhibited child’s play.

These two key elements of words and pictures are perfectly balanced and combine to make an engaging, fun read that would be highly relatable for children and adults alike.

Wonderful Shoes is perfectly suited to 0-6 year olds. It would make a beautiful addition to early learning centres, preschools, and preparatory classrooms as well as in the homes of little people.”

BRONWYN JOSEPH, JUDGE, CBCA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2022 – EARLY CHILDHOOD

Please click here to read the full CBCA Judge’s book review of Wonderful Shoes

Since being published in May 2021, WONDERFUL SHOES has featured on the iconic ABC Kids TV show Play School Story Time; been a No 1 bestseller; received many wonderful reviews; and been named in a prestigious list of ‘Best Rhyming Books for Children’ by respected Early Years Educator and Teacher Librarian, Megan Daley of Children’s Books Daily.

Please click on the image to the left, which links to a blog post, where Tania and I share some behind-the-scenes snippets on how we created WONDERFUL SHOES.

Please click on the image to the right, which links to Teachers’ Notes and Colouring-In Sheets on the publisher’s website.

Literacy Advocacy

I really enjoy spending a lot of time in the classroom each year with Yr 1 – Yr 6 children in my ‘Writer in Residence’ workshops for the education charity Ardoch, and find the children to be some of the most authentic, engaging and interesting humans on the planet.

I believe books play a vitally important role in children’s social, emotional and intellectual development. I’m particularly passionate about getting picture books into the hands of babies and toddlers via their carers in the early years from birth to pre-school age – and have been involved in many programs in aid of disadvantaged communities as a Literacy Ambassador for the children’s education charity, Ardoch since 2006. It goes without saying that I’m a huge fan of school and public libraries, and the role they play in providing access to books and interactive Story Times – no matter what a child’s postcode may be.

As an active member of Australia’s kidlit community I enjoy developing my craft by attending meetings with my Melbourne branches of SCBWI and CBCA; kidlit conferences (especially the annual KidLitVic Meet the Publishers, where I was a guest blogger in 2019); and entering writing competitions. I was honoured to have made the Shortlist of the ‘Scribbles Creative Writing Awards’ , sponsored by HarperCollins Childrens Books Australia, for my picture book and middle-grade stories.