Hi, my name is Sabrina.
I was born 200 kilometres south of Berlin, Germany, six years before the wall came down. As a child, I enjoyed writing, reading and puzzling as much as going for bike rides with my dog and seeing my neighbourhood friends. A small tight-knit community village was my home until we moved to the ‘big smoke’ Munich when I was 16.
I love to write, read and fix problems.
Originally starting as a young eight-year-old girl typing up and proofreading my grandfather’s sport articles for the local newspaper, I quickly developed a passion for grammar, spelling, reading and writing.
My grandfather was a wonderful part of my childhood. A man I absolutely adored and who ignited a passion of writing in me that I could never shake again throughout my life. But when he died, the dream of becoming a journalist unfortunately died with him. The love for writing never did.
My mother likes to still tell people how I used to scan the newspaper for grammar, spelling and punctuation errors and mark them with my red pen. Throughout my teenage years, I’d be regularly helping my friends with their spelling issues in assignments in both German and English.
Starting my adult career in PR and marketing, I instantly rediscovered my love for writing and honed my craft; gaining six years of experience in copywriting, copyediting, online content creation, blog writing, corporate writing and proofreading on a daily basis working hand in hand with many other industry professionals.
In 2008, I made the life-changing decision that I would set out into the world to explore, learn and grow. During my year-long hiatus and journey around the globe, I found love on a beautiful island in South Australia. After creating our own little family on Kangaroo Island and happily living on our remote sheep farm for 11 years, my husband, our two young children and me lost our family home during the 2020 summer bushfires.
During the recovery phase and the clean up of the burned remains of our previous farm paradise, I met some amazing resilient people that helped us not only stay focused but me personally to look excitedly into the future.
I am also volunteering as a proofreader at Distributed Proofreaders, proofreading old classic books for Project Gutenberg in German and English.
My international background and wide-ranged adventures all around the world have shaped me into the person I am today. Whether working as a quad bike tour guide, public relations manager, hotel receptionist, waitress, accommodation and property manager as well as bookkeeper, promotions manager and beekeeper’s assistant—I took a lesson and great learnings out of every opportunity given to me. I have gained a great deal of knowledge while working for many businesses and the most recent natural disaster has sparked a lot of personal growth for me. I hope to now be in a position where I can help others along their journey.
After the 2020 fires and losing our farm home, the children and me relocated one hundred kilometres away into a different community while my husband stayed behind to clean up and rebuild the farm. While feeling misplaced and disconnected, I felt the urge to close the cap COVID created on top of the bushfire isolation and started to interview local Kangaroo Island residents. I chose to start a project called Humans of Kangaroo Island in July 2020 to tell the stories of islanders one at a time.
Since then, I have told hundreds of uplifting and inspiring stories of our island community members and have fundraised nearly $60,000 for an initiative to re-equip local farm firefighters who have lost so much in the Black Summer fires.
In March 2021, I was awarded the Community Champion award at The Advertiser and Sunday Mail ‘Woman of the Year’ awards in Adelaide and stood proudly alongside five other inspiring South Australian women, including public health officer Nicola Spurrier. This award was recognising my achievements since the personal loss in 2020.
In 2021 I have many other plans to fundraise for local Kangaroo Island initiatives and to support my community.
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
Walt Disney
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one.
George R. R. Martin
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
Dr. Seuss
