After leaving her convent school, Miranda Lee briefly studied the cello before moving to Sydney, where she embraced the emerging world of computers.

Her career as a programmer ended after she married, had three daughters and bought a small acreage in a semi-rural community. She yearned to find a creative career from which she could earn money.

When her sister suggested writing romances, it seemed like a good idea. She could do it at home, and it might even be fun! She never looked back.

When MICHELLE DOUGLAS was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up she answered, “A writer.” Years later she read an article about romance writing and thought, ooh that’ll be fun.

She was right. She lives in a leafy suburb of Newcastle on Australia’s east coast with her own romantic hero who is the inspiration behind all her happy endings. 

Kandy Shepherd left a fast-paced career as a magazine editor to write award-winning romantic fiction.

Kandy lives in a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter and a menagerie of four-legged friends.

She believes in love-at-first-sight and real-life romance - they worked for her!

Nikki Logan lives amongst a string of wetlands in Australia with her partner and a menagerie of animals. Her stories are full of romance in descriptive, natural environments.

She believes the richness and danger of wild places perfectly mirror the passion and risk of falling in love. Nikki authored her first romance on a sabbatical from work. Determined to be published by forty, her first book hit shelves in February 2010, her fortieth year, and she hasn't looked back since.,

Previously a teacher, pig farmer, and builder (among other things), Meredith Webber turned to writing medical romances when she decided she needed a new challenge. Once committed to giving it a 'real' go she joined writers' groups, attended conferences and read every book on writing she could find. Teaching a romance writing course helped her to analyze what she does, and she believes it has made her a better writer.

Carol Marinelli recently filled in a form asking for her job title. Thrilled to be able to put down her answer, she put writer. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and she put down the truth - writing. The third question asked for her hobbies. Well, not wanting to look obsessed she crossed the fingers on her hand and answered swimming but, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights - I'm sure you can guess the real answer.

Amy is an award-winning, USA Today best-selling Aussie author who has written sixty plus contemporary romances in both the traditional and digital markets.

She's sold two million books and been translated into over a dozen languages.

Avril Tremayne took the circuitous route to becoming a writer, via careers in nursing, teaching, public relations and corporate affairs most recently in global aviation.

She hung up her corporate hat in 2013, after returning to her home city of Sydney, Australia, after a three year stint in the Middle East, and turned her mind to becoming a full time author.

She’s been writing sexy, funny, contemporary romance ever since. When she's not reading or writing, Avril can generally be found dining to excess, drinking wine, talking about travel, and obsessing over shoes.

Emily Forbes is an award winning medical romance author for Harlequin Mills & Boon. She has written 28 books and in 2013 won the Australian Romantic Book of the Year for her novel Sydney Harbor Hospital: Bella's Wishlist.Get in touch with Emily

They say you can take someone who was born in Africa out of the bush but you can't take the bush out of someone born there…

Lindsay Armstrong was born in South Africa. She grew up with three ambitions: to become a writer, to travel the world, and to be a game ranger.

She didn't achieve the last one, but her fascination for wildlife and that special something about Africa and its big game still remains with her. When she went to work it was in travel, at an agency and an airline, and this started her on the road to seeing the world.

She met her New Zealand-born husband, who had been working in West Africa, when he was on his way home through Johannesburg. He did go home but in a matter of weeks he was back in South Africa, and six months later they were married. Three of their five children were born in South Africa. Then one in London and one in Australia, after they made the decision to emigrate from South Africa.

It wasn't until her youngest child started school that Lindsay sat down at the kitchen table determined to tackle her other ambition — to stop dreaming about writing and do it!

She hasn't stopped since. She's not happy unless she has a book under way, and she's discovered she can write through just about anything.

She and her husband have moved around a lot. They've trained racehorses, farmed, and lived on their boat for six months while they sailed it from the Gold Coast to the Torres Strait and back, an epic voyage! They currently live in Queensland, overlooking the water; they sold their farm, and they're looking around for another boat.

Lindsay and her husband love to travel and have been back to Africa twice in the past few years. The highlight of one of their trips was a visit to the Serengeti, in Tanzania, where Lindsay did the one thing she swore she would never do: take a ride in a hot-air balloon. She was a nervous wreck as the balloon tottered upright, but will remember it as a unique experience to see the game spreading out on the Serengeti plain beneath her as the sun rose.

Despite this passion for wildlife and Africa, Lindsay considers Australia her home now and loves the country. She travelled to Sydney to witness the closing weekend of the Olympic Games in September 2000; it made her proud to be an Aussie!

A former English teacher, Barbara Hannay is a city-bred girl with a yen for country life. Many of her forty-plus books are set in rural and outback Australia and have been enjoyed by readers around the world.

She has won the RITA, awarded by Romance Writers of America, and has twice won the Romantic Book of the Year award in Australia.

In her own version of life imitating art, Barbara and her husband currently live on a misty hillside in beautiful Far North Queensland where they keep heritage pigs and chickens and an untidy but productive garden.

Melanie Milburne read her first Harlequin at age seventeen in between studying for her final exams. After completing a Masters Degree in Education she decided to write a novel and thus her career as a romance author was born. Melanie is an ambassador for the Australian Childhood Foundation and is a keen dog lover and trainer and enjoys long walks in the Tasmanian bush. In 2015 Melanie won the HOLT Medallion, a prestigous award honouring outstanding literary talent.