Why I Write

I’ve always been a writer. As a little girl, I conjured miniature magazines out of scraps of paper. In my early teens, I embarked on my first novel – a story of young romance – and shared chapters with my friends in the school playground.

Later, I penned screeds of execrable love-sick poetry (best consigned to the bin). In between ‘proper’ jobs, I’d always begin a new work of fiction – until life got in the way again, and I’d set the pages aside.

Sitting at a keyboard all day and penning fiction had always been my dream career. But stints as an actress, a journalist, publisher, event manager and PR consultant got in the way. Finally, I took the plunge, gave up the daily grind and moved to a cottage in the country with my imaginary friends.

I studied online at Curtis Brown Creative, undertook Advanced Writers Masterclass with Lynn Hightower at UCLA (USA) and was a nominee for 2017 James Kirkwood Prize in Creative Writing. Finally, those long-awaited novels began to take shape. In 2019, I was named in the final six shortlist for the Grindstone International Novel Prize for my latest novel, The Dilemma, a wartime mystery.

Bundanoon, in NSW’s beautiful Southern Highlands, is situated halfway between Sydney and Canberra, where we enjoy cold, frosty winters and fresh, warm summers. Native animals and birds are prolific: kangaroos, wombats, echidnas, kookaburras, cockatoos and more all grace our garden. Autumn is my favourite time, and through my study window I watch as leaves turn vivid red, yellow, purple and orange – a perfect recipe for creativity.! Being a novelist is a rollercoaster ride into the unknown: exhilarating and rewarding, scary and liberating. And every day I look forward to doing it all over again.

‘A Voice In The Night will intrigue you and wrap you into an eerie and riveting story that won’t let you go. Sarah Hawthorn’s writing is charismatic.’

— Lynn Hightower, The Piper