Home for the Holidays

Sarah Mayberry

Sarah Mayberry was born in Melbourne, Australia, and is the middle of three children. From the time that she first "stole" paper from kindergarten and stapled it together to make "books," Sarah has always wanted to be a writer. In line with this ambition, on graduation from high school she completed a bachelor of arts degree majoring in professional writing, then sat down to write a book. When inspiration didn't strike, she began to wonder if, perhaps, she needed to live some life first before writing about it.
This still left the burning question of how to pay the rent. She found her way into trade journalism, working off the principle that it was better to write anything for a living than nothing at all. Her time there lead to the opportunity to launch a new decorator magazine for one of Australia's major retailers, an invaluable and grueling experience that she found very rewarding.
But the opportunity to write fiction for a living soon lured Sarah away. She took up a post as storyliner on Australia's longest running soap, Neighbours. Over two years she helped plot more than 240 hours of television, as well as writing freelance scripts. She remembers her time with the show very fondly — especially the dirty jokes and laughter around the story table — and still writes scripts on a freelance basis.
In 2003 she relocated to New Zealand for her partner's work. There Sarah served as storyliner and story editor on the country's top-rating drama, Shortland Street, before quitting to pursue writing full time.
Sarah picked up a love of romance novels from both her grandmothers, and has submitted manuscripts to Harlequin many times over the years. She credits the invaluable story structuring experience she learned on Neighbours as the key to her eventual success — along with the patience of her fantastic editor, Wanda.
Sarah is revoltingly happy with her partner of twelve years, Chris, who is a talented scriptwriter. Not only does he offer fantastic advice and solutions to writing problems, but he's also handsome, funny and sexy. When she's not gushing over him, she loves to read romance and fantasy novels, go to the movies, sew and cook for her friends. She has also become a recent convert to Pilates, which she knows she should do more often. She would love to hear from readers via her email address at sarahjmayberry@hotmail.com