Claire van Ryn
Claire lives in Launceston, Tasmania, and has called the north of the state home for most of her life. She received a BA in English at the University of Tasmania before getting married and travelling the world: 12 countries in one year. On her return, she accepted a position as journalist at The Examiner Newspaper in Launceston, where she worked for nearly 10 years in a range of roles including arts reporter, features writer on The Sunday Examiner and lifestyle columnist. In 2012, Claire’s non-fiction book Faith Like a Mushroom won the Australian Young Christian Writer award. Claire has since worked as a magazine editor, communications specialist, writing tutor and manager of her own content creation business, Inkling Media. Some of her lesser known occupations included a season of blueberry-picking, assessing early childhood settings in London’s East End, barista, shoe-fitter and still life model. In 2020 she wrote her first fiction novel The Secrets of the Huon Wren, (Penguin Random House, 2023) set beneath the Great Western Tiers and Mother Cummings Peak in Tasmania’s heartland. This is where Claire was born, and where generations of her mother’s side of the family have lived since they first migrated from England in the 1830s. In her spare time, Claire likes to go on hikes through the bush, paint with watercolours, read (and read some more!), play card games with her husband and kids, and bake bread.
