WRITING her debut novel gave Lake Macquarie-based author Magdalena Ball the chance to walk the streets of her home city, New York, if only in her mind.

The Martinsville resident, 43, worked on the novel for at least 10 years and was thrilled when it was published last year in the US and UK.

Sleep Before Evening is the gritty story of a teenager's struggle against a self-centred artist mother and her escape into a world of drugs.

Ball said the book was not autobiographical but its setting allowed her to reminisce about her US origins.

"It helped to get that homesickness out of my system to go back and revisit the place in my mind," she said.

Ball hopes some in her birth country return the interest. She said 20th Century Fox and Anonymous Content, the production company behind Babel, had requested copies of her book from her publisher, BeWrite Books, to scrutinise.

"It may not come to anything but just the fact that they've asked for it is exciting," Ball said. "It certainly kicks you along."

Ball is working on her second novel, a tree-change tale set in regional Australia.