I wrote my first story long before my first poem. There once was a picture book - made of butchers' paper and drawn in coloured pastel - that I created in grade two. I must have been all of seven years old, the story was about a hen. My school librarian gave me a star. It may still be somewhere. It used to reside in the draw in my grandmother's kitchen, but her house is long gone beneath a wrecking ball, and I haven't seen it since.
It took me a long time, though, to really get into story writing. As a girl I went more for poetry than for prose. I think my first serious attempt at fiction came during my final year of high school, as part of my English project. As with my early poetry, I look back now and think: "Yuck, I really wrote that?"
Writing was only a hobby for me until, after nine years in an unsatisfactory banking career, I found myself without a job. I had an opportunity to retrain, to reskill myself. I considered my options for nine months. Finally, I sent in my preferences for university courses, not expecting to get into any. My HSC scores weren't good, and despite the fact that I now qualified as a mature age student I had little going for me. You can believe my surprise when I was accepted into RMIT to do a Diploma of Arts in Professional Writing and Editing! A two year fulltime course, this is one of the hardest of its kind in Melbourne to get into. The year I gained entry, only 60 out of over 500 applicants were successful. And me, having almost failed HSC English, had gotten in. Miracles do occur.
Well, I've graduated now - with the class of 2000. I learned a lot in those two years, and wrote more than I ever thought I could. Two portfolios of poetry, more than a dozen short stories and a half completed novel were the result. You'll find some of my poetry on another page here, below are some of my shorter works. I'll keep my novel under wraps until it's finished.
Please note: all work here is copyright NPM Oakley, and is NOT part of the public domain. Work may NOT be reprinted without my permission. As all work here has been previously published under my name, steal it at your own risk.
Enjoy...