For Diane Harding, life as a child at school in Sydney, Australia, was full of reading books, telling stories and ballet lessons. A plan to become a famous ballerina was short-lived as she settled for a more practical lifestyle. With a diploma under one arm and a thirst to help children love books, she set out as a teacher.

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Now Diane has published two books with Sydney School of Arts & Humanities: Reported Missing and A Taste for Diamonds.

 

As a teacher, Diane's first school was a two-teacher country school at Nattai.  She had 20 children from kindy to third class until the other teacher retired. Then she had the school to herself with classes from Kindy, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and two first year high school children who were too far away from the nearest high school to attend each day. When the school closed (it became part of the dam), she taught in several rural and city schools until she ended up on the northern beaches of Sydney.

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Two years later she married the love of her life and had two children. Her life was now filled with children’s books and drama. With nearly grown up children, it was back to paid work again with Warringah Family Day Care and teaching TAFE at night. This led to her first commercial writing success with two text books used by tertiary colleges, and several small how-to booklets.

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She became Chair and President of the NSW Family Day Care Association and then Chair of the International Family Child Care Organisation, speaking around the world on child care issues and becoming a life member of the organisation. It was then that the Australian Government asked her to travel Australia introducing new child care methods and then speaking on child abuse issues.

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For the first five years of retirement she wrote child care articles for a Northern Beaches magazine Peninsula Living, but all the time was thinking about writing fiction. Her fictional themes are murder, mayhem, intrigue and mystery. "The stories seem to tell themselves," she says. 

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Her blog can be found at dianehardingauthor.wordpress.com