I am honoured to be chosen as this year’s People’s Champion. It is very special indeed to be recognised for my contribution to the childless not by choice, a community that so often can feel isolated and forgotten. I thank World Childless Week for doing such a great job of uniting us all.

Linda Rooney (aka Mali) is a New Zealand blogger and writer from Wellington, New Zealand. She came to writing after suffering two ectopic pregnancies and subsequent childlessness, first as a volunteer/moderator for six years at the UK charity Ectopic Pregnancy Trust’s award-winning messageboards, then at her No Kidding in NZ blog. For over 15 years she has written there about life without children, focusing on what has helped her heal and grow, and the realities of a childless life. In passing on her lessons learned to others, she hopes she has helped them heal from loss, and face a life without children with hope and joy rather than despair.

Linda was also a contributor to the NZ anthology Otherhood: Essays on being childless, childfree and child adjacent. After years of elder are, she has also written increasingly about growing older without children. Now, having recently lost her husband to an aggressive cancer, she is facing the rest of her childless life alone, and expects to write about this new phase too.

Retired after an international career, she loves travel, languages, photography, writing, and learning new things. She blogs about life in general and travel at A Separate Life, and has an Instagram page @travellingmali where she highlights photos from her travels. She hopes to continue to see the world, meeting more of the global community without children who have enriched her life for over 20 years.