From coffee blogs to award-winning novels

Andrew's hobby coffee blog was receiving thousands of views a day, and suddenly, a new career path was calling his name.

Working in Abu Dhabi as a sports massage therapist, Andrew began his writing career quite unexpectedly. He was frustrated by the city’s lack of quality coffee, so he began searching for the perfect brew—blogging about his search as he went on. To Andrew’s surprise, his blog received thousands of views a day, and suddenly, a new career path was calling his name. Despite leaving school at age 15, Andrew leapt into university level-study, and it has certainly paid off.

Since graduating from Curtin University’s Bachelor of Arts (Professional Writing and Publishing) almost three years ago, Andrew has published an award-winning novel ‘Erasure’, and its prequel ‘Broken’—two contemporary techno thrillers. He now works day-to-day as a freelance writer, ghost writer and blogger, which provides a highly varied work life. In a day, he could go from editing a writer’s novel, to writing newspaper articles, to writing speeches.

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Andrew studied professional writing and publishing with Curtin University through Open Universities Australia.

Flexible study worked wonders for Andrew, in particular, the ability to choose subjects that fit his learning goals. “It made it easy for me to choose additional subjects and courses that made for a very interesting, almost bespoke degree”. He continues to work flexibly from home, where he can work to his own schedule, and spend time with his wife and beloved horses.

“I feel a great sense of achievement and comfort knowing that I have a degree” says Andrew, “I’m proud of it. I’m really proud of what I achieved.”

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