POET and author Lorraine Marwood allowed herself to write more after winning a competition in The Age as a young woman.
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She has since had a number of novels, poems and verse stories published, the latest being children's verse novel Footprints on the Moon.
Ms Marwood grew up in the Bendigo region and lived on a dairy farm at Dingee where she and her husband raised six children.
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"I started writing when I was 16 and began as a poet," she said. "I always snatched at writing on the farm while raising six kids. I have a teaching background but have always been passionate about writing.
"When my youngest was at pre-school, I entered a competition in The Age to write like (author) Georgette Heyer. I had said to myself 'if I win that, I'll allow myself to write', which is a stupid thing to say but I won and began to write. Poetry is my natural voice."
Ms Marwood has spent more than 10 years writing and editing Footprints on the Moon. It is her 11th children's book.
"I actually found the first instalment and verses the other day and saw they were from 2011," she said. "It was accepted in 2018 and after a series of editor and publishing changes, it happened in 2019. I re-wrote a few sections last year.
"(Verse and poetry) gives children an outlet. At big moments in life - like weddings or funerals - people turn to a poem or a song to encapsulate it, that's something we need to provide for children."
Ms Marwood said she still do write poetry and novels for adults with her passion for writing blooming in her from age eight.
"The thing is the passion. If it's in your heart and you're passionate about it, you'll do it no matter what," she said. "I had cancer five years ago and didn't think I would write again but Leave Taking was a cancer book (for children) and that sort of bought me back again.
"When I write prose or normal stuff, I can write straight onto a laptop but I have journals and journals of handwritten things. I have got whole shelves of journals going way back."
Footprints on the Moon focuses on a young teenager beginning high school in 1969 when the world waits for man to walk on the moon and the anti-Vietnam War movement grew.
"There's a lot of things in it," Ms Marwood said. "One girl is finding who she is as she enters high school with background of the whole world changing (but) it's (also) 1969, man is (going) to the moon and there is Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War.
"I just knew (this) was something I have always wanted to write about. You have to be really passionate about what your writing, otherwise there is no point writing it.
"Something like this provides empathy for children to understand some things they might never go through. It puts themselves in someone else's shoes."