Kathryn Tse-Durham completed a Master’s in Speech Pathology Studies after graduating with a Bachelor degree majoring in Clinical Psychology with Honours, minoring in Linguistics. She has always loved art and writing, and like all aspiring writers, her dream was to share her view and vision to a wider audience. Not one to simply sit around, she was proactive and took the first few steps to making her dream a reality. In 2009, she completed a creative writing course through the University of Oxford. Like all writers, simply putting out work to be noticed and getting content published is difficult; yet she found an outlet through her day job of being a Speech and Language Therapist in private practice – she got articles published in educational magazines and her university honors thesis was published in a European academic journal. The rest is history.

Through passion, persistence and sheer hard work, her small inkling of an idea morphed into a planned series, The Ellanor Chronicles. The first two instalments have been independently published: Ellanor and the Search for Organoth Blue Amber (2014) , which was a Finalist in the Fantasy genre at the International Book Awards 2015; and its sequel Ellanor and the Curse on the Nine-Tailed Fox (2015).

Being a creative wordsmith probably has much to do with her unique upbringing. She grew up in Australia and has spent large tracts of her life in Hong Kong; it was this fascinating blend of East and West that has given her such a unique outlook on life. At times, being part of the overseas Chinese diaspora can make a person feel like an outsider in both societies and cultures, but it can also give a person a vision of life which can motivate them to go further and beyond all their expectations.

The Ellanor Chronicles delves into a mythical land of magic, mystery, and is partially rooted in our contemporary world. The story reflects aspects of Kathryn’s own life as the book touches upon many different issues such as identity, confidence, self-esteem and multiculturalism. Behind this fantasy novel is quintessentially the development and evolution of a person’s identity and place in the world as life and society keep evolving. The books are aimed at young teenagers up to adults and can be best described as a ‘coming of age’.

Be prepared to be amazed as you step into an incredible world created by the vivid imagination of Kathryn Tse-Durham!