Completing a Master of Arts degree in Writing and Literature cemented my commitment to continue honing my writing skills.

In 2002, I started a copywriting business called Jacq of all Trades, Master of Writing, while also teaching drama, writing plays, film scripts and getting the odd role  in film, television and theatre through my agent.

Two of my award-winning plays, Little Red Meets the Dingo and Goldisocks and The Three Koalas, were converted into 20 minute short film scripts, produced and directed by me, and screened at Sawtell cinema to a packed-out audience!

I was then given the opportunity to direct and act in a short film called Outside the Square which won Most Popular Film at the Cool Bananas Film Festival in 2003, and Hydro Scheme, which was not entered into any film festivals. Both were produced by Verandah Post Films.

Ready-Ed Publications commissioned me to write four educational books in 2005 called The Lights, Camera, Action series about filmmaking and theatre production.

While teaching drama, I met Shirley Barnett (nee Broadway) who told me her parents were vaudeville performers in Victoria during the Great Depression.  I found her life story so fascinating that I decided to develop it into a fiction historical novel as part of my research project for my Masters’ degree. The story is loosely based on Alf Broadway’s Pantomime Players and some true events from Shirley’s life. The novel is called When The Glitter Fades. It’s a story that preserves Australian entertainment history and incorporates murder and mayhem among spectacular vaudeville performances.