Tunney, Susan C.: - I'm an American-born writer living with my family in New Zealand since 2004. I'm often asked what prompted this drastic lifestyle change and I thought these questions would be best answered by writing a book which realized itself in the very personal account of the challenges we faced adapting to a new culture: DO THEY SPEAK ENGLISH DOWN THERE? You may visit my author website at susanctunney.com for my weekly blog of New Zealand themed stories, quizzes and relevant interviews. Recently I won a scholarship to the 2018 San Francisco Writers Conference for an award winning essay I submitted with the prompt: The Benefits of Forgiveness which is available to read there too. Over the years, I've published articles in national newspapers and magazines on travel, lifestyle and parenting with my first job in New Zealand writing the tourist supplement for the Wairarapa Times-Age. I continue to write as its a compulsion, an obsession and essential nourishment for my psyche and soul, to which any writer will attest. Currently I'm working on a fictionalised memoir of my teenage years living in Northern Ireland during the '70's at the height of sectarian violence known as The Troubles.