When she's not nurturing her fledgling freelance writing enterprise, Lucy can occasionally be found in a classroom, working as a casual relief teacher.
She writes and reviews regularly for Stage Whispers, a national performing arts magazine, and has been published in The Age, Brisbane Times, Leader Community Newspapers, The Pluck, Webchild, Weekend Notes and Readers Digest. Lucy has reviewed secondary school music resources for Blake Education, and cafes for Melbourne Coffee Review 2012. Her writing blog matters of life casts a broad brush over a diverse portfolio.
Passions include print media, children's literature, music theatre, movies, walking on the beach, fresh ideas, singing up a storm, lively conversation, and asking 'why not?' She cannot abide terms such as 'loser', 'whatever' and 'who cares'. She has flat feet and a debilitating mouse-phobia.
In an earlier life, Lucy worked as a music teacher across pre-school, primary and secondary contexts, in government and independent schools, and taught for Yamaha Music Australia and the Victorian Boys' Choir.
Later she was employed by the Uniting Church in Australia (Vic/Tas Synod) to form and coordinate the Contemporary Music Network, at its height a body of 1,000 members, with many more hangers-on. Within this position she planned conferences, a state-wide gospel choir network, and 'singing down the wire' demonstrations to heighten community awareness of asylum seeker detention policy. She ran workshops at several National Christian Youth Conventions, led community singing at a National Assembly and many Synod gatherings (local and interstate), wrote songs, developed resources, and offered courses for bands and songleaders.
Lucy studied voice with Welsh soprano Joan Dargavel and Rhonda Bruce at the University of Melbourne, where she was awarded the Muriel Cheek Singing Scholarship. Formal qualifications include a Bachelor of Music degree, Grad Diploma in Education (secondary), Grad Certificate in Children's Literature, and an MA (Writing and Literature). She sings in a band called Paper Scissors Rock, and is a member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Victorian Writers Centre, Melbourne PEN, Essendon Football Club, Victorian Institute of Education, and the Australian Education Union.
Lucy lives in Melbourne's "burbs" with the love-of-her-life, 3 school-aged children, and a labrador with a penchant for chewing socks and occasionally one of the neighbours chooks.
