Teaching and Writing -> learning

Teaching and writing work hand in hand for me. When I first started teaching back in 1990, I only wanted to teach for 2 years and then go back to working on my Ph D and working at a University. However, when I started teaching, I saw how much need there was and I enjoyed teaching seniors so much that I was hooked and have never looked back.

Teaching gave me the tools to become more self-confident as I began to see successes with my students doing even better than I did in English in high school, maybe it was because I chose more relevant texts when I could, had better relationships with students and teaching techniques that they understood.

I remember in my twenties thinking what a waste of time teaching was for me, that as a writer I could be writing, instead of teaching poetry, shorts stories, Shakespeare, novels etc., But what I didn't know was that it was a great opportunity for me to study the great masters of writing (as I did when I was in Uni) and as I taught I learnt more about the writers and their lives, their motivations, what their texts themes were, setting etc. etc. It was indeed a privilege as now I feel that I am more than ready to write.

In fact, when I finished my first Certificate in Proficiency a Creative writing paper offered by the University of Auckland back in 1990 under the tutelage of Albert Wendt, I thought that I definitely wanted to write about South Auckland with a target audience of youth (YA Young Adult) but I still felt at that time that I didn't have enough life experience to share. However, from 1994 to 1996 my first plays started showing in four different South Auckland high schools until 1996 when I left high school teaching. The reason I started writing plays was that I had witnessed a South Auckland school performing a European fairy tale story for their school production and thought that I needed to do something to address it.

The plays that I'm now beginning to launch are from that era, and as a self-publisher I had to make that decision about whether to launch my latest writings or to publish my earlier collections. I think in choosing the latter, allows the audience to see the journey that I have taken as a writer to where I am today in that I feel comfortable in writing in many different genre with much more to offer...