Day Spa Guide Team

............................................................................................................................................

Day Spa Guide has a team of expert contributors from around the country. They are all experienced freelance journalists who specialise in writing about day spas and travel destinations. We also have access to other experts in the field - from Brisbane to Perth, and Darwin to Hobart. If you are looking for copywriting professionals offering competitive rates, email: editor@dayspaguide.com.au

Marc Llewellyn

Award-winning journalist Marc Llewellyn has been a professional travel writer for the past 15 years. Before that he was a news and features reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald. Marc spends up to three months a year on the road, researching and writing travel stories and reviewing resorts and spas for Australian and international newspapers and magazines. His latest travelogue, Finding Nino – a Seachange in Italy, was published in 2008. It won the Australian Society of Travel Writer’s Travel Book of the Year award. He has also won several other travel-writing awards, including the prestigious Australian Society of Travel Writer’s Travel Writer of the Year award. Marc is a former president of the Australian Society of Travel Writers and is the founder and managing editor of Day Spa Guide. Marc lives in Sydney.

See more of Marc’s work at Travel Czars http://travelczars.com
and Finding Nino at www.marcllewellyn.com

Contact details: editor@dayspaguide.com.au
Tel: 02 9523 3254

Deborah Dickson-Smith

Spa guru Deborah Dickson-Smith has been immersed in the world of publishing for over 15 years now, working across a wide range of publishing categories both on and off line. These includetitles such as Australian Geographic, DMAG, Out & About With Kids, Cruise Passenger, OUTthere, AFTA Traveller and Spa Life. Her publishing skills cover the full spectrum from writing to editing and marketing, and she is the proud owner of two Bell Awards for publishing.

Always the nomad, Deborah has lived in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Edinburgh, London and is now reasonably settled in Sydney’s northern beaches with her three children. She was introduced to the glorious world of day spas and spa resorts while publishing Spa Life magazine and has had the great pleasure of sampling a wide range of treatments in a wide array of beautiful locations across Australia and South East Asia. Her strangest spa experience yet was in a spa/karaoke bar in Hanoi, with a tiny masseur in a white tennis outfit and strappy stilettos.

Contact Details: deborahzoe42@gmail.com
Tel: 0419 618 466

Joanna Hall

Joanna is one half of the media partnership, Seahorse Media, and a publisher and co-editor of Ultimate Travel Magazine, Australia's first dedicated luxury online travel magazine. Also an advocate of health and wellbeing, Joanna is also an active health writer as well as a self-confessed cruise junkie, her passion for the high seas emerging more than 20 years ago after a jaunt through the Caribbean Islands. And with many of today's modern liners boasting enviable spa and health facilities, she has been able to fuse her love of pampering with her love of cruising. Joanna is the weekly cruising columnist for the Sun Herald, the cruising news editor for Holidays For Couples magazine, and a co-author of the glossy travel and food book, Cruising, which was published in Sept 2009. She lives on Sydney's Northern Beaches with her husband, business partner, and favourite travel companion, Ben Hall.

Contact details: joannahall@ultimatetravelmagazine.com
Website: www.ultimatetravelmagazine.com
Tel: 02 9977 8383

Kristie Kellahan

Kristie’s motto in life is ‘never delay joy’. Her devotion to anything and everything that makes her happy propels Kristie around the world to hip hop dance clubs, Buddhist orphanages and spas of every description in pursuit of a great story. From four-hand, three-hour massages in Thailand to Ayurvedic detoxes in Mauritius and eyebrow threading in Manhattan, Kristie laps up all the spa world has to offer then writes about it with passion and purpose. Published widely in newspapers and international travel magazines, Kristie has a weekly column in the Sun Herald travel section. She is the former editor of the award-winning Voyeur - the Virgin Blue inflight Magazine. When not travelling around the world on assignment, Kristie divides her time between New York City, Chiang Mai and Sydney.

Contact details: kristie@kristiekellahan.com
Website: www.kristiekellahan.com

Kris Abbey

Kris is the publisher and lead writer of Spa Life magazine – Australasia’s only print-media consumer magazine that focuses on the booming Spa and wellness industry. She is also the publisher of Better Health magazine. Kris is a health and wellness advocate,  who loves combining travel with spas. She is part-owner of Red Thread Communications, a boutique communication agency specialising in quality health, beauty and wellness content across all mediums. Kris is also the author of several books, including Going Organic: Your Guide to a Healthier Life. Kris lives on Sydney’s northern beaches with her husband, three kids and dog … though she's ready to retreat to a spa at a moment’s notice!

Contact details: krisabbey@commotion.com.au

Sue Wallace

Sue has been dipped in chocolate, rolled in honey and sprinkled with gold dust in many Australian and international spas and she’s loved every minute of it. After switching from law to journalism 30 years ago, Sue became a finance writer for The Australian. She then discovered travel writing was far more fun. She has been travelling the world and writing for Australian and international magazines and newspapers ever since. Sue is based in Albury and is the Travel Editor of the Border Mail. She also writes for a range of other publications. Sue is a former vice-president of the Australian Society of Travel Writers and committee member for four years. Career highlights include winning the 2008 Australian Society of Travel Writer’s award for Best International Story Under 1,000 Words with a tale about New York’s Trump Towers and a gold dust spa treatment. She was also one of three finalists in the Society’s 2009 awards for a story
on Shanghai, where she tested out a heavenly ‘tea’ spa treatment - the verdict? Tea’s wasted in a cup!

Contact details: suewallace54@gmail.com.au
Tel: 02 6026 2064 or 0418 425 601

Daniel Scott

Daniel has been a devotee of hotel spas throughout his sixteen-year career as a travel writer. One taxing assignment saw him visit 36 of the world’s finest hotels and experience everything from a hot stone massage in San Francisco and vinotherapy in Paris, to a four- day ayurvedic treatment on the Maltese island of Gozo. In Australia, when staying in hotels for work or pleasure, booking a spa treatment is always his first priority. The Aurora Retreat at the Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda, Melbourne, is his current favourite spa. Daniel’s understanding of spas and wellbeing is greatly helped by having a partner, Sarah, who is a massage therapist and a yoga teacher. Daniel has won several travel writing awards, the latest being the Australian Society of Travel Writer’s 2009 gong for the Best Travel Journey story. He writes regularly for the Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age and the Sun Herald travel sections, and has contributed to publications across five continents. Daniel lives close to Boomerang Beach on the mid north coast of NSW.

Contact details: danielscott26@bigpond.com
Tel: 02 6554 0962 or 0424 290 394

Veronica Matheson

A career journalist, Veronica has worked in newspapers, magazines, and in radio and TV. Her taste for spas developed as Melbourne editor of Australian Women’s Weekly, and turned into a passion during her years as Travel Editor of the Sunday Herald Sun in Melbourne. These days Veronica travels the world as a freelance journalist and ensures every journey has a few spa treatments woven into the itinerary. In short she loves to bliss out - be it in an ayurvedic spa in the backwaters of Kerala in India, amid the vineyards of Abruzzo in Italy, or after an elephant ride through the tropical jungle in Thailand’s Golden Triangle. Veronica is a former vice-president of the Australian Society of Travel Writers. She lives in Melbourne.

Contact details: mathesonv@gmail.com
Tel: 03 9592 3408

Fiona Harper

Fiona is an acclaimed travel and yachting writer. When indulging her passion for elegant resorts, Fiona’s first stop is usually the spa. Having been pummelled and pampered from Perth to Micronesia, Fiona is particularly interested in the holistic nature of spa therapy. When not on the road researching spas and waterfront destinations, Fiona’s alternates between her home on Magnetic Island in far north Queensland, and the 15-metre yacht she shares with her partner. After discovering a demand for a waterfront destination guide during an extended cruise around Australia, Fiona became the managing editor of the Australian Marinas Guide www.marinasguide.com.au. She also contributes to a number of print and online publications.

Contact Details: fiona@fionaharper.com.au
Tel: 0425 795 453
Website: www.fionaharper.com.au