{"id":8625,"date":"2010-12-25T16:58:30","date_gmt":"2010-12-25T16:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnhocking.net\/wordpressdemo\/?page_id=57"},"modified":"2024-12-23T21:08:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T21:08:08","slug":"aboout-me","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/aboout-me\/","title":{"rendered":"About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

I grew up surrounded by books. Both my parents loved to read and they shared that love with me. In the tiny Australian bush town where we lived, there wasn\u2019t a lot to do except read and ride my ponies.<\/p>\n

\"Riding
Riding a horse called Bomber<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As it\u2019s pretty hard to make a living out of riding ponies, I guess I was always going to be a writer.<\/p>\n

After some fun-filled years at Queensland University (during which I passed the occasional exam), I became a television journalist, first in Australia, then in Asia and Europe. I got to see and do a lot of unusual things. I met some interesting people, including one Pope, at least three Prime Ministers, a few movie stars and a dolphin. I also discovered that most interesting people are often the \u2018ordinary\u2019 people \u2013 who sometimes have quite extraordinary stories to tell.<\/p>\n

\"Reporting
Reporting on outback floods for Channel 7 News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

My first published fiction, a short story called The Last Dragon, appeared in 2002. I love writing short stories and you can check some of them out for free on the site.<\/p>\n

My first novel, written when I was about 11 years old, involved a young girl (me) being rescued from kidnappers by two handsome men \u2013 one of whom was former James Bond Roger Moore.<\/p>\n

\"A
A book signing in Toowoomba, Queensland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My first published novel, The Farmer Needs A Wife was released in 2009. It might not surprise you to learn that it was set in Australia and featured men on horses.<\/p>\n

Australia, horses and men still feature in my writing \u2013 although I have written one book without horses in it. There were penguins instead.<\/p>\n

I enjoying\u00a0running workshops and teaching. Twice a year I lead writing retreats with fellow writer Alison May<\/a>. You can check out those retreats on my page for writers.<\/a><\/p>\n

Alison and I also write together under the name Juliet Bell. Our first joint novel, The Heights, is a modern adaptation of the classic story by Emily Bront\u00eb. Juliet’s second novel is The Other Wife – and I’ll bet you can guess which classic novel inspired that one.<\/p>\n

I travel a lot \u2013 and many years ago in Hong Kong, I met an Englishman with green eyes \u2013 which explains why I now live in London. My travels inspire me \u2013 but it seems that when I write, I\u00a0often come back to the place I grew up.<\/p>\n

Some things you never leave behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up surrounded by books. Both my parents loved to read and they shared that love with me. In the tiny Australian bush town where we lived, there wasn\u2019t a lot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page-no-sidebar","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8625","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8625"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10137,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8625\/revisions\/10137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}