Bren was raised in a muddle of backwater villages and towns in heartland New Zealand alongside many fine young hobbits. And, in the tradition of young restless hobbits everywhere, she heaved on a backpack and spent a couple of years exploring the world (Asia, Europe and Africa - strangely, there was no magical ring involved). Like a hobbit (and due to a lack of cash) she went overland most of the way, living and travelling under local conditions (elephants through the jungle, crocodiles down the Zambesi, that kind of thing). Adventures do come to those who search for them.

Bren has had more jobs than most people have had hot dinners: working in shearing sheds, on docking boards, breaking horses and nannying as a kid then going on to be a legal junior, legal secretary, receptionist, stevedoring clerk, payroll clerk, wharfie labour allocator, house cleaner (putzfrau, actually), bank clerk, art gallery receptionist, accounts clerk, security person, switchboard operator, clerk who issues credit cards after a vague credit check(?), bulk chemical purchaser, receptionist, accounts payable and accounts receivable clerk, office manager, teacher, webmaster, she can pretty much do it all except she can't seem to get a job where someone will pay her to spend all day writing stories. If you have a job like this, please email her because she is still short of cash.

In the last 18 years she has lived in Tauranga, Frankfurt, London, Auckland and Sydney before finally stopping off in Melbourne, which is the place her kids call home (at least till the hobbit-travel-lust gets them). The writing bug bit Bren in 1999. Bren remembered that when she was younger she'd spent hours tapping out stories on an old typewriter. The great children's books she read nightly to her own kids inspired her to flex her typing fingers again. She now writes science fiction and comedy and everything in between for children and adults and everything in between. She also presents a science fiction program to gifted, talented and highly able children for a private organisation and makes webpages for very lucky people who give her some of that cash she's so keen to get her grubby mits onto.