ben ...

Let me see, where to start?

I was the kid who ran out to the chook pen to hide when strangers arrived.

I grew up on a few different farms & went to school until half way through grade 7, at which age due to distance, I began correspondence. Struggleing all the way I prefered to be helping outdoors or even in the kichen. A slow reader I didn't read much but the one book that often found it's way into my hands was large poetry book, bought for me by my father and containing the works of Henry Lawson.

At 19 or 20, i can't remember which, I wrote a few pages for a short story competition. Unfortunately that year the competition ceased, and so I was left with a story in the bottom of a drawer. For years though the story nagged at me never letting go, until one day, finding the time due to prolonged illness, I began to write. The story in my head as clear as a summers day. A4 note book after A4 note book, a new book for every chapter. In the afternoons, and until all hours of the night, I wrote, as at that stage computers were as forieng to me as the dials and switches on the control panel of a space shuttle are to most of us. But that was just the begining. A rewrite, and all the drama's that followed with it, finally the book was done. It was a long, slow, process.   Now here you see those few pages turned into the novel 'Ben' , which also led to the follow up story, 'As Deep as the River Flows'.

My hope is that the reader will discover their own vision of each of the characters and conect with them and love them as I have done.

And with that i wish you all , Happy Reading,

Manda:)

www.mandastevens.com