About Me
Brad Watson
Hi. I’m the Australian author of the Alytha Series, a love story with adult themes set in 1850s New South Wales. Currently I live near Sydney with my wife Fiona and Scruffy and Pepper, our furry friends. Fiona teaches ‘littlies’ and we have three wonderful, grown-up children who delight in calling me an absentminded professor.
In ‘real life’ there was a career as a teacher, lots of lecturing and fulfilling work with charities. There’s also been university degrees, a PhD and several books to be proud of, including three fiction novels for teenagers that make up the ‘Finding David Series’. That series was inspired by my time as a youth mentor and features the importance of ‘Resilience’, ‘Integrity’, ‘Self-discipline’ and ‘Knowledge’. These are some of my core values.
I’ve also written illustrated children’s stories (‘Siggy and Flori’, ‘Bindis Big Adventure’ and ‘Fat Mouse Gets Clean’). On a more serious note, friends and I wrote a history book about the Seventh-day Adventist mission to first Australians in far-north Queensland (‘Remembering Mona Mona: The Mission in the Rainforest’). Months of visiting schools and orphanages in India and Nepal also inspired a non-fiction book on Child Sponsorship, and one of my most enjoyable projects was helping an elderly friend write a memoir about missionary life in Papua New Guinea, ‘When God Calls, Expect Adventure’.
Not too long ago, Fiona and I packed up to travel around Australia in an old Toyota Landcruiser and borrowed a van from her parents. What an amazing adventure it was! Highlights included trekking across the surreal landscape of Wilpena Pound, surviving the loss of a wheel at high speed on Kangaroo Island, driving the infamous, car-destroying Telegraph Track on Cape York, and completing a dusty loop of the mighty Simpson Desert! Not to mention the awe of seeing Aboriginal rock art in Kakadu National Park, teaching wonderful children in the tropical Torres Strait, and a close encounter with a crocodile in an ancient cave!
Somehow, amid a year of highlights in 2023, the first book in the ‘Alytha Series’ was published with the help of family and friends. ‘The Promise’, ‘A Time to Hope’, ‘Redeemed’ and ‘A Time to Love’ are my first historical love stories. I knew the books were powerful when I heard my daughter Zoey crying one night in her bedroom. She was a teenager at the time, and I nervously sat on her bed to ask if she was OK. “You’re the problem, dad” she said with a smile, wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s your book that’s making me cry!”
Thanks for visiting my site. I hope you enjoy it!