Wherever you go,

there you are

Hello! My name’s Libby, and I belong in many places

By trade, I’m a wordsmith, and I’ve been alive long enough to have done a lot of different wordy things. 

I’ve been a novelist, ghostwriter, editor and editorial advisor, a prize-winning short story writer and poet, head of strategic communications in a climate tech startup, a manager in a large bookstore, and a creative writing teacher and coach. 

Along the way, I have worked with many hundreds of people at all stages of their life journey—with uni students, business advisors, new mums, architects, parents of teenagers, artists, scientists, bankers, executives, HR professionals, marketers, comms teams, and people in recovery from addictions.

In practice, my own life and career have hardly been linear. Every plot twist and pot-hole and dusty highway has brought me to where I am now. 

A long time ago…

I began my life in Newcastle, a seaside port and industrial town north of Sydney, in an area known to indigenous Australians as Mulubinba. It was named after a local fern.

In a matter of months, we had moved north of the border to Queensland.

And so began a somewhat nomadic childhood as my family relocated every few years.

On the road

Forever intrepid adventurers, my parents had taken the family to 25 different countries and we’d lived in the UK, Malaysia and the USA as well as Australia by the time I was 18.

Over many accumulated weeks and months on the road—living on campsites during school holidays, waiting for ferries, driving long stretches of road between towns and cities—I learned from my parents the skills it takes to create a sense of belonging, wherever I may be in the world.

And always, always, it starts with ourselves.

The poetry of belonging

A friend asked me once if there were any commonalities between the people I met in all these countries. On reflection, I think it’s that we are all creators at heart, and we all experience love and loss.

Over the years, I’ve come to value the art of responding creatively to whatever life dishes up, in the spirit of quiet acceptance and adaptation.

Sometimes finding belonging requires getting comfortable with unknowns and unpopularity; sometimes it means listening before speaking.

Often, it’s as simple as forgetting the stories around us and in our heads for a moment, and enjoying a jar of flowers on a table with a meal.

the Next chapters

Perhaps it’s no surprise I married young (I’d just turned 22) and, after a season working in TV news and current affairs production and research, embarked on season of nesting and nurturing children. 

These years were deliciously chaotic; they were years in which I doubled down on home-based arts like cooking, photography, painting and music, alongside some teaching (screenwriting) and editing (fiction and academic nonfiction), and public radio production (Appalachian roots and folk, anyone?). 

Our kids were up and running when my husband and I set out with the family on an adventure of our own in 2007, moving from the limestone plains of Canberra to Zürich, a city on the doorstep of the Swiss Alps.

And so began another season of reinvention …

… as a self-employed copywriter, editor, blogger and novelist, as a freelance ghostwriter, and (it turns out) a community builder and entrepreneur.

the art of a life poetic

Over the years, I’ve observed that life is a series of moments and days and seasons, none of which are ever a repetition, nor truly predictable. And we rarely, if ever, know what’s around the corner.

Like any art, living a life poetic is a dance and a balance …

… one part inspiration and many parts caring for ourselves and others, loving whole-heartedly, and showing up regularly to practise our life’s art with devotion—day-in, day-out—until we find a way to work with shadows and light that enables us to create something magnificent and to share the journey with those we love.

(PS It’s unlikely that I will be sharing my questionable banjo-playing with anyone any time soon!)