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Jay Maclean, Australian, likes to paint, write, windsurf and play jazz (keyboards), not always in that order. Also does consulting work on tropical marine and agricultural resources. Enjoys. Has a fascination for everything about the tropics; lives in the Philippines with his Filipina wife Margie.

Jay graduated as a Master of Science in marine biology at the University of Queensland, worked at a desk biologist in Canberra for seven years, a fisheries biologist in Papua New Guinea for two years, and the CSIRO in Sydney for another two years. During this time he married; had three children, Camille, Serena and Cameron; and was eventually divorced. He worked in the International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management in Manila from 1980 to 1996 and has been an independent consultant since then. He married Margie in 1985. Their son Marlon, born in 1996, lives in Australia.

Jay and Margie have a modest beach house in Batangas with a coral reef at their doorstep, which has been the source of inspiration for much of Jay’s painting and writing. His visual art career began with a visit to the artists’ colony in Angono, near Manila in the early 1980s. He learned techniques in oils and after a few years began exhibiting with the Angono Artists Association. He is now a full-time visual artist but still finds time to write short stories.