Stella has been writing all her life, since she was about six years old, and her mother would write down  her stories in an old exercise book. 

 

As a child she would act out stories and adventures, in her bedroom before going to sleep (reference the short story Bedtime.)

 

At age 9, in Raffles Girl's School, a  request for a play to be perfromed for the class end-of-term party showed her that there could be a ready audience for plays, and this may have been the genesis of her very successful book of 9 Classroom Plays.   A few years later, in the Girl Guides, she helped present plays and skits around the campfire - which gave rise to the Brechtian or "Street theatre" style of her later works.

 

Her prose plays were always freighted with verses and lyrics.  In 2002 she was introduced by Dr Kenneth Lyen to writing for musical theatre.  She took to the craft with great enthusiasm and has not stopped since.