Christine Leonard — writer, indie author, editor.

Biography

Christine is an Australian indie author who was born in Papua New Guinea, and grew up on the island of Bougainville. A large part of her working life was in community development and international aid projects in the Asia Pacific Region.

Christine is drawn to social history and non-fiction. She is a regular blogger with the Genealogy Society of Queensland (GSQ) and other family history sites. Her first has also written articles for other family history sites.

Her first serious writing project was a family history of her paternal Wall family, featuring William Wall who was transported in 1835 to the colony of Van Diemen’s Land. This book titled The Wall Family weaving the threads of memories is in its second print run with E-books available through Kobo and the Leonard Stories website.

A recent project saw Christine editing, and contributing with additional stories, to the memoir written by the late Fr Franz Miltrup sm, a German priest who spent 50 years in Bougainville from 1938. Fr Miltrup died in 1996 after writing his memoir in Tok Pisin. Christine helped Fr Harry Moore sm translate the manuscript into English, after which she edited it, to publish When the Garamuts Beat—A Memoir Of Fifty Years In Bougainville. This title is available through the Leonard Stories website.

In between short stories, blogs, and a biography on someone who lived on Coochiemudlo Island, a looming project for Christine is a memoir about growing up on cocoa and copra plantations in the New Guinea Islands from the 1950s to the 1970s. This story will deal with culture, politics and race, during Australia’s colonial administration.