Five minutes with media and marketing guru, food writer Sophie Hansen

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So much! I'm a cold-weather person so Orange definitely suits me down to the ground.

Then there's the four distinct seasons, the waiting for each one and all the good things it brings. For example, I'm getting excited now for the beginning of Autumn and the quinces, apples, pears and figs!

I love that so many good, creative people are so many doing good creative things here. We have incredible winemakers, chefs, producers, artists, creatives, entrepreneurs...there's so much going on all the time.

I grew up in a house where mealtimes were always important and creativity was prioritised.

Mum is a great cook, she has always had this talent to create good meals without any fuss and for as many kids ended up at the table.

She's also an artist and gave all of us kids an appreciation of the importance of bringing creativity into our every day lives.

So our home was full of colour and she was always making things and encouraging us to join her. And while I don't paint or draw these day, I do think that cooking is a creative act, that we eat with our eyes and that food that looks good, abundant, fresh and colourful, just tastes better!

And so after university (where I studied print journalism), I sort of gravitated towards food and lifestyle media where I got to write about food and then ended up marrying a farmer and writing about our life on the farm and all the good food around us.

Along the way I taught myself a bit of photography and now I love bringing words and images together to tell stories and share the food I love in books and Instagram.

To be honest, I moved here because I became engaged to Tim who had a farm and a business based in Orange and it was much easier for me to shift location than him. But it was no hardship at all!

Even almost 20 years ago Orange had an incredible food, wine, creative scene. And though I grew up in Sydney and never imagined I'd live anywhere else, I absolutely love it here. Especially being on the farm with all this space around us.

I love that I can be busy with work things, out and about at book events and then come home, shut the front gate and not see anyone for a few days! And I love that our kids get to grow up here and participate in our livelihood, have responsibilities on the farm and space to explore and just be.

My all time favourite thing to do is a dinner picnic with just us four up on the hill behind our house.

Um....I definitely don't have any secrets and am constantly dropping balls. But I guess I just try to get as much done every day as I can and not stress too much if things are left unchecked on my to-do list. There's always tomorrow.

I work for Marketing Directive on Mondays and Tuesdays and the other days I do whatever needs doing that week - it might be working on a book, or book-related events and promotions, it might be a freelance article, it might be cleaning and cooking for guests at our bnb here on the farm or helping on the farm itself.

I do get up early, starting most days at around 5am and feel like that does give me a jump on things. But it does mean that I'm super boring at night and generally turn in pretty early!

These days I'm often in bed before my teenage kids which makes me feel ancient!

Sweating the small stuff! I can get one not-so-nice comment on Insta and it can de-rail my mood for a bit.

I also need to get better at keeping on top of my inbox!

I also love this piece of advice that I heard Elizabeth Gilbert give in an interview once (so it wasn't given directly to me but I hope it still counts); 'Everything's been done before. But not by you. And you're allowed to add to the pile'.

I think about this every time I start to fret and question "does the world really need another cookbook, another recipe for fruit cake or whatever?"

And then I remind myself that while yes, everything has been done before, and while yes, there are many fruit cake recipes out in the world, mine will be different and unique because it's mine!

Best business: I am constantly in awe of the team at Clever Cookies Academy. How they run their business, how awesome their offering is and how well they market it.

Best place to eat: (am I allowed three?) I love Hey Rosey, Printhie Dining and the Union Bank.

Best event to attend: The monthly Orange Farmers Markets are pretty amazing! I also think Orange F.O.O.D Week sets the bar very high for regional food festivals.

Hidden Gem: The Pinnacle Lookout. I love packing a little drinks picnic in my backpack and walking up to the lookout on a Friday afternoon with a couple of girlfriends to watch the sun go down and toast a big week.

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