Lorraine Pestell
Hello! I’m Lorraine, a British-Australian author who’s nearly sixty years old! I live in Moggill, west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. I am currently between dogs, but that won’t last for long!
A long-time sufferer of PTSD and all its symptoms, I began writing as therapy. I now have only one of my seven books left to finish before A Life Singular is complete!
Awards
A Life Singular received a New Apple Award for fiction in 2015.
A Life Singular also won a Notable Indie award in 2014.
In November 2015, I was fortunate to be selected for a performance reading video pitch by the WildSound Festival in Canada.
Why I write…
I have enjoyed a long career as an IT professional, working in many countries and industries. Born in London, I consider myself a global citizen. After stints in several European cities, the east coast of the USA and Singapore, I arrived Australia just before the turn of the century.
Moving from Melbourne to Perth and then country Victoria, I now reside in a laid-back and leafy suburb in western Brisbane, in the Sunshine State of Queensland.
The product of a family riddled with mental illness on both sides, I began to experience depression and anxiety at around five years old. This developed into constant suicidal ideation in her teens, then adding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder into the mix after an abusive marriage and various other damaging life events.
I’ve always loved the written word, both reading and writing. As a teenager, I spent my spare time writing journalistic accounts of current affairs, in an effort to make sense of an increasingly disturbing world. Wherever I turned for help, others failed to understand what she was going through, so I found refuge in writing fiction.
A Life Singular started out as an adolescent love story but soon became a therapeutic vehicle for exploring social justice and mental health issues. Several friends suggested I write an autobiography or memoir to help others going through similar challenges. However, I was convinced that no-one would be interested in my insignificant life!
Instead, my scribblings gradually became a series of contemporary fiction novels, using our endless fascination for celebrity and the age-old attraction to triumphant love. My writing goal is to encourage people with no experience of mental illness to learn how to understand, tolerate and support people like me, rather than stigmatising and marginalising us.