More About Me

My birth name is Adalgisa, but soon after leaving home aged sixteen, I shortened it to Adel. I however choose to be known as Angelica (my middle name) within the literary field. I am from South Australia (the Barossa Valley)  married with three adult children.

 I was born in Rome to a single mother who was a conservatory trained operatic soprano and a pathological narcissist. My grandmother, who acted as my stand in father, (I never met my biological father)suffered from Munchhausen’s by Proxy. We arrived in Outer Harbour South Australia in 1975, but moved to Sydney in  1977 because my mother’s career was going nowhere  here in SA. Because of poor demographic choices by my newly acquired stepfather, a Sicilian Tenor, I was raised in suburban Cabramatta which soon gained a reputation as Australia’s heroin capital and the setting for PM John Newman’s execution, Australia’s first political assassination. Primarily because of my mother's neurosis and narcissism, I became a runaway at the age of sixteen, and I write extensively about the vicissitudes that ensued in my autobiography Seventy Thousand Camels.

Fast forward a failed eighteen year marriage and several attempts to break out of domestic anonymity, I began a new career as a Juvenile Justice Officer working in several New South Wales detention centres with children ages ten to twenty one. My interest in crime and punishment was sparked by the murder of Sydney nurse Anita Cobby in 1986, a horrific crime that shook our previously unperturbed social climate. I had joined a victims of crime support group and came to know and befriend several high profile families of victims and victims themselves,  including Anita’s parents. Thirty three years later, I returned to South Australia and worked in child protection here for a year before venturing into Adult Corrections and thus inside a medium security men’s prison where I met my second husband Adam Brewer.

Life with Adam and my belief in the Higher Self and accidental practice of metaphysics, has brought me a great deal of happiness in later years, as do my multi talented and caring children. I am also an avid animal lover living on five beautiful acres alongside twenty seven furbabies who all have stories and names, and, countless other natural fauna. 

For me moving forward now, the very best is yet to come and I'm excited!

Om Shanti Om )0(