Ainslie Paton lives in the most awesome city in the world – Sydney, five minutes from the beach, but not the famous one where her age spots and skin cancers came from.
She was a shy child who was frightened of the vacuum cleaner and sand. Only one of those things changed.
The literary tradition runs deep in her clan. Her grandfather told a mean story though he hardly had any schooling. He once sent an important letter written on a roll of toilet paper because that’s all that was available. He also pulled his own teeth and set his own bones, so you know. Her grandmother was an expert in British aristocracy. She made a weekly study of popular magazines and could quote them. She believed every word. Her uncle wrote unintentionally hysterically funny airmail letters from abroad in tiny handwriting that required a magnifying glass to read. Her brother believes a fully-rounded person only ever need read the sports pages. Her father has never read a book in his life, but he might one day. Her mother texts. Occasionally they make sense. Mastery of phonetic spelling has proven key to knowing when there’s a free feed on.
She has two cats. Don’t bother drawing any clichéd conclusions about that. They’re cats who think they’re dogs. To her knowledge neither of them can read. Yet.
She has never used an oven.
She was one of those torch under the bedclothes after lights out readers as a kid.
She particularly liked reading stuff she wasn’t supposed to and still does.
She set out to write but the need to eat, have bedclothes to read under and books to read was ever present so she sold out and worked as a hack and a flack, mostly impersonating other people and making things up for companies and the occasional government.
She still does that.
She also writes for what must be love.
She's indie and published by Escape Publishing, a Harlequin imprint.
Her books include: Getting Real, Grease Monkey Jive, Desk Jockey Jam, Detained, Floored, White Balance and Hooked on a Feeling.