The Sydney Morning Herald

Ingrid was featured in an article by Margot Date in the Sydney Morning Herald on 15 September 2007.

Here is an extract:

Persistence, reading as many children’s books as she could find and learning the discipline that comes with writing every day have contributed to Jonach’s success.

“Everywhere, people turn you away from the profession,” she says. “Even at university we were given a wake-up call on day one that if we [expected] to make a living as an author, forget it.”

It was hardly the start Jonach had anticipated when she enrolled in a bachelor of professional writing at the University of Canberra. With a University Admission Index score of 94, she could have chosen almost any degree and was urged by a teacher to do law. But she did not want to let the UAI score sway her.

As it turned out, she pursued a career she hadn’t thought of and that was in journalism. She fell into it the old-fashioned way by starting as a copy person at The Canberra Times, doing clerical and administrative tasks in the newsroom. It was meant to be a part-time job to earn some spending money while at university.

“It was an eye-opener,” Jonach says. “It was a huge experience.” After three months she became editorial assistant to the chief-of-staff and the editor-in-chief and did her studies after hours.

Being in the middle of a newsroom meant she saw what journalists did – and wanted to try it for herself.

“It was a profession I never thought I would go into but it meant I could do what I loved, which is writing … The great thing is, in hindsight, it helped my creative writing. It taught me how to do research.”

It also taught her to overcome her shyness.