Sally Jane Smith has lived on five continents and visited thirty-three countries, but she gives credit to Greece for turning her into a writer. She has worked in museums, universities, a language institute, a residence for people with disabilities, an art gallery, a primary school and a wildlife park. She also co-hosts two book clubs.
In 2006, the bus on which Sally was travelling through Sri Lanka suffered a head-on collision, breaking her body and her spirit. A decade later, she journeyed to Greece in a quest to recover her wanderlust – and proved it is possible for an out-of-shape, middle-aged woman on a budget, equipped only with a guidebook and her mother’s 1978 travel diary, to experience a remarkable adventure.
This is the story that became Unpacking for Greece: Travel in a land of fortresses, fables, ferries and feta, the first in a planned three-book series. Pre-publication excerpts have been awarded First Place Non-Fiction in the Port Writers Open Literary Competition and shortlisted in the National Writing Competition organised by the Society of Women Writers NSW.
Sally completed a Varuna residency in 2018 and has published travel articles in Gulf News and TripFiction, and craft pieces in Women’s Ink! and Brevity Blog. Sally’s story of her great-great-grandmother’s extraordinary life appears in the anthology Itchy Feet: Tales of Travel and Adventure. Her exploration of travel and grief is included in the Newcastle Short Story Award Anthology 2022.
Website: www.SallyJaneSmith.com
Social media, podcast and other links collected at: www.linktr.ee/SallyJaneSmith