Welcome to …
Glenys McLaughlin has worked as a writer and editor for more than 30 years, including in public relations, tertiary education, interactive multimedia and documentary. She has completed training as a professional editor with the NSW Writers’ Centre and undertaken postgraduate studies in editing and publishing at Macquarie University.
Bowled over by Star Wars at the impressionable age of 11, Glenys developed a lifelong interest in technology that mimics human behaviour and dreamed of “building droids when [she] grew up”. That dream came true starting in 2007, when she moved into the world of Artificial Intelligence chatbots. Glenys holds a patent in Artificial Intelligence, and has designed and built hundreds of virtual humans deployed in a variety of roles, including as customer service representatives, intelligence-gatherers, game characters, conversational companions, and teachers, coaches and advisors.
Glenys has also lectured and tutored in philosophy and has a particular interest in philosophy of mind and consciousness. She had hoped to complete her PhD one day, but, well, “life had other plans”, “it wasn’t meant to be”, or “stuff happens”—however you choose to view these things.
Turning her hand to longer-form writing, in 2019 Glenys completed the Faber Writing Academy’s True Stories course, taught by Patti Miller, Autralia’s foremost authority on memoir. As recipient of the inaugural Rosina Joy Buckman Award, she attended Springfield Farm’s Creative Writing Workshop and Retreat facilitated by award-winning authors Karen Joy Fowler, Nike Sulway and Cath McKinnon. Glenys is currently working on a memoir and a novel. You can read more about her writing adventures in her blog, The Tussle.
Glenys has a love-hate relationship with the NSW Southern Highlands where she’s lived since late 2015 with her family, including Connie, arguably the world’s best rescue cat.