Hi! I’m Dr Peta Freestone.

Yes, I wear a lot of hats. No, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Put simply? I write, and I help other academic and creative writers make their best words happen.

And here’s the long version of my story:

For more than a decade, I’ve worked in writer and researcher development in Australia, Asia, the UK and Europe, spanning the arts, humanities, social sciences and STEM. My multidisciplinary academic background and creative work as an internationally published author provide me with a unique and versatile skill set, including the ability to engage a variety of specialist and generalist audiences.

I hold degrees spanning a broad range of humanities and social sciences disciplines, culminating in a PhD analysing innovation in biomedical research fields. During my doctoral candidature, I was a Commonwealth Scholar at The University of Edinburgh.

After several years in researcher development roles at the University of Melbourne (receiving the Norman Curry Award for Innovation and Excellence in Educational Programs), I returned to the University of Edinburgh to manage the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. There, in 2016, I won the University Community-Building Initiative Award as the founder and editor of the Dangerous Women Project, a creative and academic public engagement platform. The Project was also named in The List’s annual top cultural initiatives in Scotland. Upon its completion, I transitioned to running my own writer and researcher development consultancy full time.

As a creative writer, my work has appeared in print and online, including novels published in eight languages, and short stories in anthologies from Penguin and others. From 2021-2023, at Edinburgh Napier University, I designed and launched the world’s first fully online MA dedicated to writing commercial genre fiction, and served as founding Programme Leader.

These days, I spread my time between my own writing, researching writing pedagogy and practice as an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe University, and helping others to achieve their writing goals.