About

My name is Susan Prior. When I first began this website, I was working as a freelance writer and editor on beautiful Norfolk Island. My work was wonderfully varied – from children’s books to deeply researched articles, from editing fiction to complex, politically charged manuscripts that demanded real care and attention.

But the reef kept calling me back. This site grew out of my daily swims, and an increasing fascination with the fish and other little characters I’d come to recognise and look for each day. When I received an underwater camera for Christmas 2019, it changed everything. These pages are the direct result – a way to capture what I was seeing, and to start making sense of it.

At the beginning, this resource was simply for my grandson, Seb. Since then, my family has grown and I now have two granddaughters, Emilia and Lucy, as well. This was going to be something to share with them, so they’d know this reef the way I do. But as I learned more, I also began to see what the reef is up against. That curiosity – and that worry – has grown into something much bigger: in my mid-60s, it’s led me into a PhD.

Alongside this website, I’m now working towards a body of research and storytelling that I hope will help inform how Norfolk Island’s reef is understood and managed. Over time, that work has also taken me into community and advisory roles, where reef health, catchment impacts, and long-term stewardship are part of the day-to-day conversation. I’m a current member of the Country Universities Centre Norfolk Island Board, and I serve on the Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area Advisory Committee, the Norfolk Island National Parks Advisory Committee, and the Norfolk Island Regional Council’s Environment and Sustainability Advisory Committee.

In 2022 and 2026, I received Australia Day Community Achievement Awards, presented by the Administrator of Norfolk Island, in recognition of my work on Norfolk Island’s reef.

My goal is for this reef to endure. Not just as a place where I love to swim, but as a living reef that will still be here for my grandchildren to explore, properly, when they’re old enough to slip under the surface and meet its world for themselves.