About
R. M. Hewett writes fantasy featuring magic, political intrigue and characters you wish were real—with rather more humour than her professional background might suggest. She lives in Canberra, Australia, with her husband and sons in a multilingual, bicultural household.
From an early age, imagining other worlds became a refuge for R. M. Hewett (Ros). In a very stereotypically Australian childhood, she shared her backyard with kangaroos, snakes and spiders and spent quite a lot of time around sheep.
At age six, Ros decided writing novels could allow her the flexibility of a career from home when she eventually became a full-time carer for her sister, who was born with a severe disability. Concerned adults informed Ros that there was little income to be found in writing. And so, she created a bucket list of things she wanted to learn, places she wanted to live, and experiences she wanted to have before that day arrived, hoping that they would help her invent more convincing worlds and write more gripping fiction.
The bucket list led her to a variety of roles, including assistant tennis coach, piano tutor, school-bus aide for children with disabilities, farm hand, welfare receptionist, research assistant and university tutor. She completed a PhD in Southeast Asian history and lived in multiple countries, becoming multilingual. Along the way, she met her husband, who worked in politics in Indonesia, and spent almost a decade working in the heart of Australian politics in Australian Parliament House, including as a researcher for Senate committees.
Through the years, Ros kept inventing imaginary worlds. She didn’t write them down, assuming she’d have the rest of her life for that.
Then Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme transformed Ros’s sister’s life, meaning she could live in her own home with full-time support. The future Ros had long imagined for the two of them suddenly wasn't going to happen.
For the first time, Ros had to decide whether the stories in her head were worth writing now, rather than waiting for a future that would never materialise.
They were.
Having worked her way through most of that bucket list, Ros now draws on those real-world experiences to craft fantasy worlds with invented histories and political systems, populated by ordinary people who have never existed but feel as though they might have.
A selection of Ros's non-fiction work is available here.
