Lauren Hackney

Author

My name is Lauren and I live in a seaside suburb of Brisbane. I live with my amazing husband, Geoffrey, and our two boys Baxter and Ethan.
Together we love exploring, trying new things, laughing and being amongst nature.
Another past time of ours if story telling. Whether it be a bedtime story, a campfire story or a road trip story – we love each taking a turn and seeing where the story takes us.
We love our animals at home. We have chickens, fish, cockatiels and recent adopted our first dog.
We love travelling and seeing different sights both in our own back yard and next door.
Until one particular year, I almost lost everything.
The pandemic grounded my aviation career, and my husband had a major heart attack that almost killed him.
I was now trying to get a new job. Any job. Which I found incredibly challenging because the last time I tried to find a job was 16 years prior. No one could leave their house and I didn’t know how to use zoom.
And my husband has been diagnosed with heart failure. He was 41.
Feeling at my lowest and very lost, my friend Dinah asked me the simplest question – ‘if you could do anything right now, what would you do?’
I simply said – ‘write my children’s bedtime story’…
My other friend, Sharon, urged me to write this story before life went pear-shaped. Her family demanded it be told on every camping trip over the years. I really wasn’t prepared for how popular it could be.
So, my children and I decided to write this book for not only a distraction but for some much-needed family time.
Hours were spent illustrating at the dinner table and recalling parts of the story together. Working out which character would use which magical ability and how much mischief they would cause. Crazy amounts of mischief and incredible amounts of laughter were soon translated into a manuscript.
This turned tears into laughter, sadness into smiles, rain into sunny skies. Even on my days when I felt most heartbroken, working as a family on this story project quickly raised my spirits.
Writing, illustrating, and publishing our books has been a positive lift for an otherwise difficult setting for our boys. They too have built resilience through these times by using the power of imagination.
Reminding me that now on challenging times, the power of magic and imagination can save the day. No matter what age you are.