Sarah Martin can't remember a time when she didn't want to be a writer. As a child she wrote short stories for her family as Christmas presents. But it took a series of extraordinary events to jumpstart her career as a writer after twenty years as a secondary school teacher and ten as a fundraiser. In 2012 she published a biography, followed by two histories and a children's picture book. During lockdowns in Melbourne throughout COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, she indulged her secret passion for writing fiction, and completed four novels, Azita and Me being the first to be published. She has discovered almost by accident that much of her writing is inspired by her exploration and love of the natural environment, which has meant she has had to confront the connected issues of climate change. She sees her fiction as a means of expressing these interests in a creative and non-confrontational way.