Frances Prentice

Frances has been a passionate literacy advocate for many years.

Training first as a speech pathologist, then as a teacher, she worked as an Advisory Visiting Teacher for Speech Language Impairment before having her own family.

Whilst raising five children, Frances continued to keep her interest in literacy, using her training in phonics to tutor many children over the years from 4 to 17 years of age. She also worked part-time as a phonics instructor, Learning Support Teacher, kindergarten teacher and supply teacher.

In 2020 Frances began fulfilling a childhood dream of becoming an author, and had several small successes with short stories and poems being included in anthologies, magazines and online publications. She then began co-writing a junior chapter book with some young people she was tutoring for self-publication. She has now produced three books with young people: Guinea Pig League: Captured!, Guinea Pig League: Rescue! and The Crystal Chronicles: Shattered!

In 2020 Frances also began working her first middle-grade fiction novel with a similar setting to their family farm and subject matter close to her heart: Always Your Sister. This was published in March 2025, closely followed up by another story in a rural setting, the YA novella, Holding Back, published in July 2025. She is continuing to write both with young people and for them, whilst home schooling her youngest child, assisting with home school co-op classes and screening people for irlen syndrome.

In 2022, after her daughter was diagnosed with irlen syndrome, Frances became a screener for this condition. She now provides an Irlen Screening service in South West Queensland, and is in the process of becoming a diagnostician so she can help people who would otherwise have to travel for hours to access this service.

Frances has begun to do speaking engagements as an author, travelling to Dubbo for Book Week in 2025. She hopes to do more engagements closer to home in the near future. She relates well to students from preschool to university level, and is well able to adapt her talks to suit the needs of the group to whom she is speaking. She enjoys creating stories with children and has fun bringing these to life, acting out the scenes they have created. For older students, she is encouraging of students of all levels of ability, bringing out their creativity.