Amanda nally
AUTHOR & EDITOR
Amanda Nally is a life-long learner who thrives on finding solutions in a world she insists is full of challenges rather than problems.
It was her love of diversity that led her to set up Write Answers — combining her favourite tasks to create her perfect job. Starting a business doesn’t seem such a drastic solution when you consider her background.
In 1983 Amanda made her corporate debut at the helm of a pilot Young Enterprise Scheme in Manawatu. That fledgling school business made a profit and the scheme prospered. When, 22-years-later, Amanda presented the marketing segment of a greatly expanded Young Enterprise Scheme she was tickled to find herself addressing 80 Southland secondary school students.
When Amanda moved to Southland in 1987 it was with business degree papers from Massey University under her belt and several years’ experience in the public sector. She continued working in the public sector until 1992 when she left to study journalism. After graduating with merit from the Aoraki Polytechnic in Timaru, she began work for The Southland Times.
Specialising in court and media law, she spent a large chunk of the next decade immersed in crime before striking out on her own in a freelance career.
The first big trial she reported on was that of Rex Haig’s, sparking a ten year campaign which along the say took her behind the scenes into Paparua Prison’s notorious East Wing and finally ended in 2006 with his murder conviction being quashed as unsafe.
She’s a believer in empowering others and, since keeping things simple comes naturally, she’s a great teacher. Amanda’s tutored in media law, media management and marketing through SIT, NZIM and the Young Enterprise Scheme.
She co-founded a successful PR and marketing practice in Southland in 2003 that formed the basis of Write Answers.
In 2012 the focus became more personal — when Amanda wrote her first biography — with the dawning realisation that books are really just features that allow the writer to step back to see a bigger picture, and better a story.
That private project, titled “An ordinary life” was to change forever the focus of Write Answers.
Her belief that everybody has a story to tell is reinforced by every person she meets.
And when, in 2014 she met retired Southland farmer Les Hailes, it was reinforced further.
Together they embarked on a six year project culminating in the publication of Just Cause and Effect – Selenium Deficiency in New Zealand in 2020.