Biography
Samantha Tidy is a Western Australian writer of adult, young adult and children's fiction. With a strong passion for youth engagement with The Arts, history and culture, she works full-time in arts education whilst balancing her writing commitments - though like all writers, it is her dream to one day be able to write full-time.
Samantha has lived in lots of different places, like Perth, Paris, London, Dublin, Canberra, Galway on the West coast of Ireland, Hamelin Bay on the South coast of Western Australia, Wyalkatchem in the remote WA wheatbelt, Melbourne, Halls Creek and Broome in the Kimberley...but she has always thought of Fremantle as home, no matter where she chooses to live in the world.
A Brief History
Samantha's first novel was originally titled The Goodbye Kisses. She entered it into the T.A.G. Hungerford Award for Fiction, in 2000 and received Runner Up.
Samantha retitled that novel, and it was published as Cappuccino Diva in 2003 by Black Coffee Press, a publishing label of her own creation. The novel tells the story of a year (1997) in the life of urban Fremantle. This novel is listed on the WA ESL curriculum, and is studied in some schools in Western Australia. In October 2004, Samantha participated in the Inaugural Ubud Writers' and Readers' Festival in Bali Indonesia, where she presented a writing workshop and gave readings of her first novel.
In 2005, Samantha was commissioned by the NSW Government to write two children's picture books, The Flying Dream (illustrated by Connah Brecon) and The Blue Polar Bear (illustrated by Ian Forss) which were published in January 2006 by the Department of Community Services, NSW. Both books have a current circulation of around 30,000 each.
These two texts help children understand when a parent has Dual Diagnosis (where mental illness is combined with substance abuse). The project won a major trans-Tasman award (Mental Health Service, Australia/New Zealand - Gold Award for promotion of Mental Health) and a Highly Commended in the 2006 NSW Premier's Public Sector Awards.
Interspersed with travel overseas, Samantha spent the first eight years of her career as an English and French teacher, which enabled her to live in several beautiful parts of Western Australia, including a remote Aboriginal community (where the inspiration for the Kimberley desert setting for her forthcoming novel came from). In March 2011, the unpublished manuscript of this novel received Commended (3rd place out of 81 entries) in the 2010 FAW National Jim Hamilton Award for an unpublished manuscript. In June 2011, it was shortlisted for a Penguin Varuna Scholarship and also shortlisted in November 2011 for a Harper Collins Varuna Award for Manuscript Development (announcement of winners due end of February 2012).
Her main career focus for the past eight years has been in museum and arts education, developing a strong passion for Australian history and cultural heritage, notably at the Australian War Memorial and the State Library of Victoria, where she has led teams of passionate educators, towards communicating Australia’s heritage to young people. Her current role is Head of Education at Australia's national touring company, Bell Shakespeare, from which she is presently on maternity leave.
In 2008, her professional contribution in this field was acknowledged and she lived and worked in Paris for 4 months, as the recipient of a research fellowship, at the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF). She wrote a 20,000 word paper on how international libraries can learn from each other, when catering for youth and future generations within the changing world of information.
Along the way, Samantha has also freelanced in writing non-fiction for magazines and newspapers, with work published in Australia, Ireland and Indonesia, and has been commissioned to write pieces for major international publishers such as Dorling Kindersley, UK.
In 2009, Samantha completed her Masters in Creative Writing at The University of RMIT, Melbourne, titled "In Heaven as it is on Earth: Created Heavens in Contemporary Literature, focussing on The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold."
Samantha is currently working on two young adult novels (one on Franco-Australian maritime history, the other about climate change) and has just finished a rather big adult novel that she hopes to share with you soon.
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