<p>Donna Goodacre is of Waikato Tainui descent and 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. She started her first novel, <em>Finding Miriama</em>, in 2018, when family members convinced her that her ancestors' story, if told well, could make an interesting read.</p><p>Five years of historical research later, coupled with a little poetic licence and imagination, it was completed. The sequel, <em>Of Greenstone and Violins</em>, published in 2025, took only one year after her retirement from full-time teaching. The third in the <em>Our Unbroken Spirits</em> series, <em>The Spirit Remains</em>, was released the following year.</p><p>Donna still divides her time between her birthplace in Tauranga, New Zealand, and Brisbane, Australia, where her close family lives. In both places she can be found on a beach or somewhere small and intimate, listening to live jazz.</p>
