About Marian

Marian Penman grew up in south west England and was educated at St Ronan’s Primary School and the Alfred Colfox Secondary School where her love for writing was born. She became head girl in 1968 and progressed to Redland College Bristol where she studied teaching.

In July 1971 she married and moved to Bath where her first two daughters were born. Shortly after the birth of their second child the family moved to Johannesburg for two years and produced a third daughter. Returning to England, their fourth child, a boy, was born at Frimley Park in 1977. The following year they moved into a fairly derelict Georgian house in Bath which they proceeded to renovate.
Just after their son’s second birthday they moved back to South Africa where Marian attempted to suppress her homesickness by keeping a journal. Although she had no aspirations to become a full-time writer, she submitted three articles to national magazines and all were published.

1995 saw the breakup of their marriage and a year later Marian married again. Blending a family comprising of the six children they had between them proved emotionally stressful and again Marian resorted to writing out her feelings, although none of this journaling was suitable for submission to publishers.
In spite of some domestic difficulties, Marian was able to travel extensively with her husband and eventually ended up moving to Australia.

It was time for a career change but it never occurred to Marian that she could possibly become an author. Instead she took a course in Aged Care, and focussed her personal studies on aspects of dementia. But writing was always a hobby and the two articles she submitted to The Age newspaper were both published.
During her work with dementia sufferers, she became passionate about the effects of the disease on both patients and their families. She wanted to do something more than just ‘caring’ in the clinical sense, so wrote a story hoping to create greater awareness of neurodegenerative disease.

The book, ‘Losing My Marbles’ was published in February 2011 by Sid Harta Publishers Pty Ltd and can be obtained through the distributors at http://dennisjones.com.au or www.amazon.com The ISBN is 1-921829-71-0 and the RRP is AU$24-95.