HER vivid auburn hair catches your eye immediately.

Comic book writer Gail Simone's shoulder-length mop frames a cherubic face. As the photographer tidies her hair up for a photo shoot in the Grand Plaza Park Hotel, Simone, 43, notes absent-mindedly: 'The humid weather is not very good to my hair.'

She would know. After all, she was a hairstylist before becoming one of the most sought-after scribes in the American comic book industry.

In town for the Singapore Writers Festival, she is also the first female author to helm the iconic Wonder Woman series.

Like the warrior princess, Simone is a rare female figure in her world. While there are a few female comic book writers like Devin Grayson (Catwoman), there are even fewer who have broken from the ranks to anchor a major title.

Simone's ginger hair played a crucial role in her life's journey.

Brought up in a farmhouse in the small town of Florence, Oregon, she remembers watching an episode of the 1960s Batman TV series.

'Batgirl did it for me. She had the same red hair, and she was punching, kicking and beating bad guys up,' she recalls with a smile. 'Who wouldn't want to be like her?'

Relaxed, she takes a sip of her glass of iced Sprite as she relates her past in her low voice.

The eldest among three siblings, the self-proclaimed bookworm would take on farming duties and babysitting chores and 'not eat that much bubblegum', to save money for her monthly comic book purchases.

As she started on literary giants like Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and Shakespeare, she continued reading comics, albeit secretly.

In her sparsely populated hometown then, she knew no one who shared her interest in comics - works often dismissed as frivolous.

She moved out of home when she was 16 and enrolled in a creative writing and theatre arts course in the University of Oregon.

However, she was too poor to afford college, so she dropped out and went to a hairdressing school instead.

The initial years in the trade were tough for her, she says, because she was then very shy. 'It was scary working with people in that personal relationship,' she says, laughing.

She overcame her bashfulness and for the next 15 years ran her own salon.

The pivotal moment that took her away from scissors to the pen happened in early 1999, when she and her friends chatted about comics in online discussion boards.

A sore point she had about the plots in the genre was the representation of women in the superhero series. 'They were raped, maimed or killed. When you were wondering why there were so few female comic book readers, you had characters being treated like that to put them off,' she says.

An issue of a DC Comic, Green Lantern, where the hero returns home to find his girlfriend's corpse stuffed in the refrigerator, prompted her to create a website, Women In Refrigerators, listing the suffering female comic book characters have experienced.

Many industry players took notice. One cartoonist, Scott Shaw!, recommended her to Bongo Comics to write for The Simpsons Comics. That stint opened other doors.

But it was her four-year run on the Birds Of Prey series which sealed her reputation as a writer to watch. The series stars B-list female vigilantes like Black Canary, Huntress and the character who made her love comics in the first place - Batgirl, known in the series as Oracle, after she was crippled by the Joker.

It was this series that got her flak from a Singaporean blogger known only as Zero the Hero.

In a three-issue story arc last year, she had the lead character, Black Canary, pursue a drug lord in Singapore. Zero criticised the inaccuracy of her depiction of the country, which elicited a retort from Simone.

She says of the incident: 'I understand that not everyone is pleased with what I write. I believe in freedom of speech and expression. In the same vein, I would also respond if the comments are inaccurate or unfair.'

There was no epic battle between the two when they met at the Singapore Writers Festival on Dec 1, though. Simone deadpans: 'Comic book writers get criticised all the time. Luckily, we are also very thick-skinned.'

Still, her sensitive and layered portrayal of women in Birds Of Prey was lauded by fans and comic book writers alike. The title became so popular that it even had a TV action drama series spin-off starring Ashley Scott.

Despite her success in comic books, the wife of an American travel writer and mother of a 15-year-old boy closed her hairdressing salon only two years ago.

'I was brought up thinking that writing is a hobby, not a career. So even when financially, writing was much better than hairdressing, I didn't dare to do writing full-time, until I finally realised my salon was pulling me back.'

She has not looked back since. She recently wrote a five-minute animated short, Pre-Teen Raider, for game publisher GameTap's website. The story, featuring Lara Croft at the age of eight, received rave reviews from netizens.

Simone's greatest coup, however, has to be penning Wonder Woman, the Amazonian who ranks alongside Superman and Batman in the DC Comics Hall of Fame.

She says: 'It is an honour to write an icon like her. She was around way before the likes of Xena and Lara Croft showed up.'

Her run, which began in Issue 14 released on Nov 14, will take the lasso-toting superheroine back to her roots as an adventurer.

Romance is also in the cards. 'She'll attempt Amazonian courtship traditions. That is not going to be pretty for the guy,' Simone teases.

Birds Of Prey graphic novels are available at major bookstores from $19.71 onwards. Simone's current run of Wonder Woman comics is available at comics stores at about $3.

Authors including Cultural Medallion winner Isa Kamari and China's Wang Anyi are giving talks at the Singapore Writers Festival, which ends today. For details, visit http://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/

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'I went from standing on my feet the whole day to sitting on my butt the whole day'
On her transition from hairdressing to writing

'Wonder Woman would love chilli crabs'
On what the comic book character would do if she were in Singapore

'People actually suggested that I did sexual favours to get my job. It was a stupid and ignorant thing to say, because I worked really hard to get to where I am. It was hurtful'
On being one of the few female writers in the comic book industry