About David Michie

I was born and brought up in Zimbabwe, Africa, lived in London for ten years and have resided in Perth, Australia since 1998. I always felt a closeneness to animals and when I was young I read every book I could find by Gerald Durrell and James Herriot.

Most of my professional life was spent doing communications work for financial services companies. I began meditating for stress management reasons in my 30s – without knowing it at the time, this started me on a journey which connected me to Tibetan Buddhism.

As a communicator, I wanted to share my wonder at all the insights I was learning from my teachers. This led to my first book Buddhism for Busy People. While promoting it, and subsequent books like Hurry Up and Meditate I found that a lot of people interested in these subjects seldom read non-fiction in their own time.

Hence the novels which I so enjoy writing: The Dalai Lama’s Cat series, thrillers like The Magician of Lhasa, and most recently Instant Karma: The day it happened. I believe that fiction is an ideal medium to engage readers’ hearts and imaginations as well as their intellects. What’s more, storytelling is part of a long tradition of spiritual teaching, where inner, subtle process become easier to understand externalised in metaphors and parables.

Since 2015, I have been returning home to Africa with groups on Mindful Safaris, combining my love of animals, meditation and the extraordinary natural vistas of my homeland, including Victoria Falls.

In circling back to where I started, the fundraising I am able to do through Substack helps contribute to the animal rescue charities back home, as well as the wonderful Buddhist charities in the Himalayas, who make every dollar we give them stretch a very long way.

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