Donna Goodacre, who is of Tainui descent, is a retired high school/correctional centre/vocational school English and Foreign Languages teacher. Her career spanned some forty years in New Zealand and Australia. Finding Miriama is her first novel, having started it in 2018, when family members convinced her that her ancestors’ story, if told well, could make an interesting read. Five years of historical research later, coupled with a little poetic licence and imagination, the novel was completed. The sequel, Of Greenstone and Violins, is due out in 2024.
Donna still divides her time between her birthplace in Tauranga, New Zealand, and Brisbane, Australia, where her close family all live. In both places she can be found on a beach or somewhere small and intimate listening to live jazz.
