About Me

I’m here to help you write the stories you want to write. My online writing courses suit busy people who need to fit their writing around other activities in their lives. I provide course material that offers a lot of choice. Each writing course consists of three foundation modules and four you choose to suit yourself.

I now nurture beginning writers to achieve their best work and then help them to place their work with a publisher.  In the past two years several of my students have won prestigious awards that have included publication with international publishers. Many have become published authors. All have learnt how to proudly place their thoughts on paper.

For a complete list of my publications please download this pdf.

After years spent writing fiction, plays, memoir, gardening books and newspaper columns, I became a grandmother, a very involved grandmother. Now life is a discontinuous narrative. Time for writing is unpredictable and starts with clearing clutter off the dining room table. Increasingly I spend my non-family time teaching others what I have learnt about writing and the publishing industry. And in my own writing life I have turned to poetry to express my new self. I think of the poems as small wild animals I have captured for a few moments in my hands and then released. To read them, please visit my poetry blog  www.janicemarriott.wordpress.com

I continue to write for children, and articles for magazines. My most recent book is called Grandparents Talk, based on a series of interviews, published by David Bateman Ltd, examining the role of grandparents in our diverse and busy society. My current project involves interviewing people who care for disabled relatives. 

After thirty years of growing up I met Virginia Pawsey at a Gisborne Girls’ High School reunion and we promised to write to each other describing our different lives; hers as a hill country farmer in North Canterbury and mine as an inner city office worker. Our common bond was our love of gardening and food. We kept our promise and our emails led to four popular books and a regular column in NZ House and Garden magazine. These exchanges on common life events, like motherhood, family, love and loss, work-life balance, the meaning of life, and of course food and gardens, resonate with both city and rural people.