Samantha Brown

Samantha Brown is an Australian freelance writer who has lived in Thailand for more than three years. She came for a holiday with her partner and they never quite managed to go home, thanks to their arrival in the middle of Thailand's biggest ever currency crisis. After snaring what turned out to be a dead-end research job at the Australian Embassy in the political and economic section, she thought she might be interested in a career in diplomacy - and even went back to Australia for an interview. They didn't want her, so she tossed them and headed to the Nation newspaper, where she worked for a year as a subeditor underneath a subzero airconditioning unit. When the frostbite finally got to her, she decided to freelance for good. She now writes for a number of publications - newspaper, magazines and websites. The highlights of her freelance career so far have been writing an encyclopedia entry on the Southeast Asian environment, and giving a BBC radio report on Israeli female sex tourists in Bangkok. She's also supposed to be writing a masters thesis this year but has yet to hit on a topic.