I was born on the 2nd August 1978 in Johannesburg, South Africa, and grew up on the mining towns in northern South Africa. My father, Johann, worked on the mines and my mother, Linda, took care of the home. I also have a younger brother, Dylan.

Young me grew up surrounded by fantasy books. I lived to read. I was a nerdy bookworm, complete with freckles and a vivid imagination.

I wanted to be a writer from a young age. I wrote short stories on scraps of paper I'd keep in my case of Lego blocks. As a teenager, I wrote the first few pages of my first fantasy novel, inspired by my favorite fantasy author at the time, David Gemmell. The story was about a cursed hero wandering in a lost kingdom. I studied at the University of Cape Town, where I read fantasy fiction novels outside my Philosophy and Archaeology classes. This knowledge of the fantasy classics would later come in handy for crafting the characters in the Formosa Series.

After my degree, I moved to George, South Africa and worked as an Environmental Consultant. There in the beautiful Garden Route, I read Tolkien and Rowling. I conceived the idea for my second work of fiction in 2005 living with my mom, who had been battling cancer at the time. It was a tale based roughly on my own experiences. Over the following years, I would begin to map out the ideas for the Formosa Series.

Taking just one bag with me, I moved to South Korea to teach English as a foreign language in 2011. Here I met and married Chen Chi Chia in 2014 and we had a great life together. Here I worked on writing English language textbooks. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, I moved to Taiwan to live in Yilan, with Chi Chia and a backpack containing the early ideas for the Formosa Series. In coastal city of Keelung, I trained as a teacher and began teaching at the prestigious Fu Jen Sacred Heart High School, a private school with an excellent English program. I continued to write in my free time.

Taiwan is where I finally took my writing seriously. I'd known for years that I wanted to learn to write properly. That way I'd be doing what I loved. No text was safe from my bespectacled eyes, as I studied the writings of established authors. This resulted in me producing some cringeworthy fantasy tales and a few rather mundane short stories. Still, I’ve never lost the passion I had for the written word. Being able to share my passion for reading at Fu Jen Sacred Heart High School became such an honor for me. I absolutely loved teaching reading at this school and became determined to finish the Formosa Series.

Having completed a rough draft of the first book while riding the high-speed rail back in 2021, the remaining three were pieced together in coffee shops over the next few years. By 2024 the series was complete. It was written to appeal to young English learners across Asia, but intended for a global audience. In 2025, the plan is to expand the Formosa Series, with three further books already in development.