Books like Hard Wired

My passion is sport, and as an athlete who has overcome a life-changing medical condition that resulted in becoming an upper-limb amputee, then rebuilding a new life as a para-athlete, I draw great inspiration from reading memoirs from athletes who have successfully returned to sport and are living fulfilling lives after a major life trauma. I have been fortunate enough to meet most of them. These athletes have a similar mindset to my own. They set lofty goals; they are driven to succeed; they adapt, and they never give up. Outside of that, they are kind, generous people who are living their best lives. Something we can all aspire to!

My passion is sport, and as an athlete who has overcome a life-changing medical condition that resulted in becoming an upper-limb amputee, then rebuilding a new life as a para-athlete, I draw great inspiration from reading memoirs from athletes who have successfully returned to sport and are living fulfilling lives after a major life trauma. I have been fortunate enough to meet most of them. These athletes have a similar mindset to my own. They set lofty goals; they are driven to succeed; they adapt, and they never give up. Outside of that, they are kind, generous people who are living their best lives. Something we can all aspire to!

My passion is sport, and as an athlete who has overcome a life-changing medical condition that resulted in becoming an upper-limb amputee, then rebuilding a new life as a para-athlete, I draw great inspiration from reading memoirs from athletes who have successfully returned to sport and are living fulfilling lives after a major life trauma. I have been fortunate enough to meet most of them. These athletes have a similar mindset to my own. They set lofty goals; they are driven to succeed; they adapt, and they never give up. Outside of that, they are kind, generous people who are living their best lives. Something we can all aspire to!

My passion is sport, and as an athlete who has overcome a life-changing medical condition that resulted in becoming an upper-limb amputee, then rebuilding a new life as a para-athlete, I draw great inspiration from reading memoirs from athletes who have successfully returned to sport and are living fulfilling lives after a major life trauma. I have been fortunate enough to meet most of them. These athletes have a similar mindset to my own. They set lofty goals; they are driven to succeed; they adapt, and they never give up. Outside of that, they are kind, generous people who are living their best lives. Something we can all aspire to!

An internationally recognized endurance athlete and New York Times bestselling author, Dean Karnazes has pushed his body and mind to inconceivable limits. Among his many accomplishments, he has run 350 continuous miles, foregoing sleep for three nights. He's run across Death Valley in 120-degree temperatures, and run a marathon to the South Pole in negative 40 degrees. On ten different occasions, he's run a 200-mile relay race solo, racing alongside teams of twelve. His long list of competitive achievements include winning the world's toughest footrace, the Badwater Ultramarathon, running 135 miles nonstop across Death Valley during the middle of summer. His most recent endeavor was running 50 marathons, in all 50 US states, in 50 consecutive days, finishing with the NYC Marathon, which he ran in three hours flat.

I've been an avid reader across many genres since I learned to read as a child and have wandered into all sorts of categories to find literature I love. Fantasy became my first love, but that didn't mean I had to abandon everything else. I like finding great books that don't make the big publisher lists with their generic output. Since the rise of indie publishing, I've developed a habit of sampling anything that sounds like it might be interesting and have found some amazing and very original stories!

I left home in Melbourne to spend a year travelling in Asia when I was in my mid-twenties. I ended up living abroad for a decade in London, Bangladesh, and Myanmar before returning to Sydney in 2016. My first book is about the four years I lived in Myanmar and I’m currently writing my second, which is about the year I spent backpacking from Cambodia to Pakistan. My third book will be about the three years I worked as a journalist in Bangladesh. My plan is to write a ‘trilogy’ of memoirs. Living abroad has enriched my life and travel memoirs are one of my favourite genres, both as a reader and a writer.

Literary agents often say they are looking for books about ‘quirky’ female protagonists. I’m more entertained by female characters who feel real to me. When I write, I make myself uncomfortable a lot of the time, trying to express the many ways people both disguise and reveal the truth. I blame my devotion to my parents for this because when I left home in Massachusetts for college in the foreign land of Indiana, studied for a year in China, then studied in Italy, then worked in Taiwan, then moved to Japan, and later to Singapore, I wrote them copious descriptive, emotional letters. My parents are gone now, but in a way, I’m still doing that.

Most motorcycle travellers spend months planning their trips but I took off on a whim having been lured by romance and tales of the open road. When my conventional life fell apart, I surprised even myself by flying to India and buying a brand new 500cc Enfield Bullet motorcycle and began my haphazard global wanderings learning to trust that the world I had been told was a dangerous place, wasn't at all (except for a couple of occasions at sea!) I liked the meandering life so much, it became a way of life.

I was born in England to Australian parents and have lived most of my life in Australia. My family all live there, and I grew up in Sydney. Most of my books have been about Australian-related themes or historical figures. I don’t think enough is known about Australian history outside Australia. Australian writers have always struggled for recognition outside Australia. Publishing can be an unfair business. I’m more interested in reading nonfiction than fiction. True stories are much harder to write and get right, and there’s a bigger responsibility involved. You’re dealing with real people. The dead ones also have families.