Dannika Patterson (nee Haling) is a multidisciplinary professional. She is a children’s author, workshop presenter, freelance consultant and small business owner. She’s also a mum of two, community volunteer and Ambassador for not-for-profit organisations including Children’s Rights Queensland and Australia Reads. Her career path since graduating from MBC has been anything but conventional, proving that girls don’t need to choose just one thing to “be” when they grow up. After earning degrees in Journalism and Psychology from the University of Queensland, Dannika became neither a journalist nor a psychologist. Instead, she integrated the skills and knowledge gained through her education, applying them in her work across different industries.
For the first decade of her working life, Dannika travelled the world, working as Director of Products & Content Development for a multinational telecommunications company, collaborating with creative giants like Disney and Universal Music to license, adapt and distribute diverse multimedia content. After returning to Australia, she founded her own consultancy, specialising in project management, strategic marketing and bespoke content creation, helping businesses (mostly in the education and wellbeing industries) tell their stories more effectively.
After becoming a mother, Dannika decided to pursue a dream she’d held since her own childhood, kicking off what would become her all-time favourite career – writing books for children. Over the past 9 years she has written more than 20 books for children, including Australian picture books Jacaranda Magic, Scribbly Gum Secrets, Hedgehog the Wonder Dog, Zoom, Heavy, and My Super Uncle, as well as a handful of internationally published titles, a poetry collection and a middle-grade novel. She hopes to write many more.
Whether she’s completing a consulting project, working within her own small businesses, sharing her books at schools and libraries across Australia, or advocating for children’s rights and literacy, Dannika is an example of the breadth of mind, depth of heart and creative spirit that Moreton Bay College inspires in its students.
