I like words. I believe words matter.

They shape our thoughts into symbols — visible, recognisable to others. Others who are not us. One after another, like pearls threaded on a string, they weave the stories that become our lives. Occasionally, I find the ones I need. They are never exactly right, but I am teaching myself to accept that. They are the only tools I have to build bridges between — and shelters within — the two very different worlds I now inhabit: the one that birthed me, and the one that shaped me.

Which is why I need my words to be incredibly resilient, yet incredibly subtle. So they can carry stories of loss, love, and the quiet courage it takes to breathe in both worlds — from Croatia to New Zealand and back again. Catching the light of all I have lived. In those elusive, yet very real spaces between loss and belonging, they arrange themselves into a story, a poem, or an essay.

Mainly in English — a language I learned as an adult. Sometimes in my first language — once called Srbo-Croatian, and renamed more than once since, yet still the language of my earliest self. I was born in Zagreb, Croatia (Hrvatska) in 1965. In 1994, I crossed the world to New Zealand, speaking no English. There, I built a life, a voice, and a name in a new tongue.

Between those two shores, I have known the devastation of war, the loneliness of immigration, and the searing pain of losing my only child.

Now, I live once more in Croatia, carrying both names and both worlds with me. My writing reflects these crossings — of borders, of languages, of grief and resilience. I hope that at least some of it honours them.

I hold an MA (Distinction) in Creative Writing from the IIML, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand; an LLM/ILAP from the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand; and an LLB from the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, Croatia.