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The son of a rural itinerant worker, I had more schools than years to the end of my secondary schooling. I went to sea as a ship's engineer in 1959 and left it in 1997, with breaks for service as a Surveyor to Lloyd's Register of Shipping, Lecturer in Engineering and Superintendent Engineer.
I returned after one break in the mid 1970s (after the births of our three children) having sold two short stories to long defunct men's magazines. A writing life beckoned, but engineers do not make hasty decisions so I experimented with writing novel length fiction. One story I wrote ten times from beginning to end on a cheap portable typewriter, accumulating ten versions in lever arch files before deciding a writing life could never meet my financial obligations to my family.Writing was relegated to an enforceable relaxation from a 24/7 career in the offshore oil industry until I retired in 1997.
With time on my hands at last, I began by entering writing competitions of all types, winning two national ones and a five book contract with a small Australian publisher of category romances in paperback form. Six books later, when the company failed, I was published in the US in e-book form, still as Amy Gallow--the female pseudonym my first publisher insisted I adopt.
Amy published eighteen stories, magazine shorts included, before I released my first book as David Andrews. She gave me the services of eleven editors and four publishers to hone my skill as a writer. I still write occasionally as Amy.
On August 1st, 2012, Eternal Press will release Coasting, the story I wrote ten times in the mid 1970s and I am working on another sea story I wrote first in 1982 set on an aging supply boat working in the Timor Sea.
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