She jokes about it, but thinks it has to do with being a paraplegic – if she can no longer do things like walk around her rural property, she can at least achieve domestic order.

And it helps calm a mind brimming with ideas. "I have to tidy everything first, and then I can write."

The formula has worked. On August 1, Brown will release her sixth book, Six Degrees – six erotic short stories whose characters are loosely connected by a fatal car accident.

It is being marketed in the popular 'rural romance' category – and yes, some stories in Six Degrees are set on farms or in regional towns.

But she says mostly it's about sex. Not what she terms "junk sex" of Fifty Shades of Grey, but wistful, realistic explorations of characters' sexualities.

The chapter 'Older' is the story of a young fly-fishing instructor who falls for her much older client, a recently separated man from the city. 'Two Women' is about an erotic dancer in an outback pub who falls for a female miner. 'Threesome' and 'First Time' are self-explanatory.

Brown says too often in fiction sex is shallow and "plonked in as a bit of excitement".

"I get frustrated ... I think sex should be woven in and it should be an opportunity to draw out new aspects of character, even drive the plot."

Brown's previous five novels were psychological thrillers,but she says both her thrillers and her new book explore characters' reactions to new situations.

Brown was born in Traralgon, but moved to Campbell Town in Tasmania in grade 4. She had dyslexia – problems with spelling, handwriting and grammar – and couldn't concentrate in class.

Now she sees it as an asset: it made her think differently. She left school in year 11 to live with her grandmother in Traralgon, where she met her now-husband, John.

Together, they travelled Australia working odd jobs, from Nhulumbuy in the Northern Territory to Kalgoorlie, WA; and Mackay in Queensland.

Being a writer wasn't the plan. She and John settled on a farm in Callignee, south of Traralgon, but in 2000, when their children were aged one and four, a cow charged Brown and broke her back. The lower spinal injury she received left her paralysed.

Brown fell in to a deep depression that lasted five years. Writing at first was "something to do" but it became a joy.

Her first novel, Red Queen, about two brothers surviving a virus that decimates the population, won runner up in an ABC unpublished manuscripts competition, which led to Penguin publishing Red Queen, to critical praise.

Brown is speaking at two forums, on August 23, at Melbourne Writers Festival and is gleefully writing a seventh book: a psychological thriller.

"Writing for me is like reading," she says. "I want to go and do it because I want to find out what happens next."