IN THIS ISSUE - AUGUST 2024
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Neil Blick grew up in beachside Melbourne and now lives in regional Victoria. After travel and diverse work experiences, he started University at twenty seven. As a former teacher and psychologist, he values observing and understanding people, knowing their life experiences, how they are shaped, and shape themselves, along their path in life.
Susie Chong still has difficulty reading her scribbles after years of writing short stories about fun and serious things. Life, nature, travel, and her new kitty inspire her to observe, imagine and create. Susie is also an avid gardener and enjoys taking photos.
Jane Downing’s stories have been published around Australia and overseas. In 2023 she won the AAALS (American Association of Australasian Literary Studies) Fiction Award and in 2024 second prize in the Furphy Literary Award. Her novel The Sultan’s Daughter was released by Obiter Publishing in 2020. She can be found at https://janedowning.wordpress.com
Peter Farrar’s collection of short stories The Distance Between Loves will be published in 2025 by In Case of Emergency Press. He has had one short play performed last year at the 1812 Theatre, as well as a reading of another at Theatreworks. His extended family includes two greyhounds who regularly snore through his editing.
Alison Knight, formerly an English teacher, has had work performed with Melbourne Writers’ Theatre, Peridot and Hartwell theatre companies, and in the 1812 Board Shorts, Madwomen Monologues and the Legends of the Skies. She has also published two novels, Peter Stone and The Close, and a volume of short stories, The Undiscovered Room.
Louise Zedda-Sampson is a Melbourne-based writer, researcher and award-nominated editor. She writes nonfiction, and speculative and literary short fiction. Her writing has appeared in peer-reviewed journals, online and in magazines and anthologies. Her debut book Bowl the Maidens Over was released in 2021. www.louisezeddasampson.com.au
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Violette Ada tries to untangle her mind's eye in words. She is a writing student in Melbourne.
Gillian Barnett, in an earlier life, wrote two award-winning novels for adolescents and two picture books, as well as several short stories. A senior lecturer in English at Monash University, she is now retired, and trying her hand at adult fiction. In 2014-15 she was Bayside Writer-in Residence.
Helen Braun, Melbourne-based, composes stories often influenced and shaped by a strong sense of musicality and many years as a practicing artist. She finds that words become an accompaniment of lyric lines scribing back and forth between makings and writings.
Barbara Burdon is discovering the joys and challenges of writing fiction. A novel and a book of short stories currently keeps her occupied. As a committed foodie, exploring the Mornington Peninsula’s wineries, restaurants and coffee shops provides her with the necessary distractions and inspiration. www.barbaraburdon.com
Bridgette Burton has been writing for over 25 years and is an award-winning playwright. Her work has been performed nationally and internationally. www.baggageproductions.com
Kieran Carroll is an award-winning Melbourne writer of twenty-five plays, produced in Australia, America and England. Recent productions include Sons of Sun, In the Mens, and The Truth is Longer Than a Lie. Kieran has also received writing residencies including the prestigious Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York. www.kierancarroll.com
Karen Churchill writes an eclectic mix of fiction and non-fiction. One of her travel tales, Bathrooms and Bidets, has been published online and she has recently completed a memoir In a Flash written in two voices, hers and her father’s. She fuels her writing with coffee and gym workouts.
Adrian Cloonan is in his 80th year and writes of personal incidents and adventures that loom large in his memory.
Darryl Emmerson's plays, including The Pathfinder and Martin and Gina, have been staged and broadcast throughout Australia, and he has also performed widely as a singer. Talking to the Future, his play about Alfred Deakin, was successfully staged at La Mama, Carlton in June 2022. www.darrylemmerson.com
Janice Florence studied short story writing at RMIT, and writes stories, poetry and song lyrics, notably for the Australian musicals Martin and Gina and One Day in the Week. Her letters to the Age are also usually published.
Suzanne Frankham has spent most of her life constrained by technical jargon, but has found the transition to creative writing liberating. Her competition successes include category wins in the Scarlet Stiletto, the UK Writers’ Forum, and the Melbourne Bayside Competition resident prize.
Rebecca Fraser writes genre-mashing fiction for children and adults. Her publications include short stories and poems, a novel for middle grades, and a forthcoming collection of her dark short fiction. While Rebecca copywrites and edits in a freelance capacity, her passion is storytelling. www.writingandmoonlighting.com
Laura Fulton, born in the Mississippi delta region of Arkansas, is now an Australian citizen. A writer, teacher and researcher, and PhD candidate at RMIT in Melbourne, she explores how the adopted person may address issues of identity, origin and belonging through writing. Her work has appeared in publications including Swamp Writing, TEXT, and Qualitative Inquiry.
Chris Grierson has had poems and short stories published widely in Australian literary journals such as Otis Rush, Mattoid, Overland, Meanjin and in The Age. In 2012 Hunter Publishers issued Touch The Black, his novel on the life and times of Melbourne gangster Squizzy Taylor.
Mark Haines is an Adelaide story writer.
Bill Hampel is a former teacher and lecturer who grew up in semi-desert, north-west Victoria. His recent long publications are Against the Grain (Rosenberg, 2015) and Mallee Roots (Ginninderra Press, 2018).
James Howard is a writer (journalistic flair at school), actor and filmmaker. His film Boats, criticising refugee policies, was a hit at the Sun Cinema, Yarraville. Has played the roles of Henry Lawson, Iago, Leopold Bloom, Atticus Finch, Willy Loman, Chaplin, and Hitler (iced coffee commercial) “took the money” James confessed.
Sara Jarrold has written short stories, a novella, Penance (Amazon), and several plays including Madonna, Medusa and Me, Oops, A Tapestry, Like, and The Green Cardigan, variously staged at Chapel off Chapel, Bakery@1812, Stag Shepparton, Ballarat Trades Hall, ELT, Dionysus Theatre, and Melbourne Writers’ Theatre.
Karen Lethlean has had stories published recently in Here Comes Everyone, Baby Teeth Journal, Wanderlust Stories from Home Narrative Map, and This is Not a Love Letter. Also received an honorable Mention for Dog Whispers in 48th New Millennium Writing Awards. Currently working on a memoir titled Army Girl. In another life Karen is a triathlete who completed the Hawaii Ironman twice.
Angela McMurray is a Melbourne-based writer, speaker’s agent and events administrator. She is completing her Masters of Arts in Writing and working on her first poetry collection, Archimedean Point.
Tricia Natoli, born in Cambridge UK, spent her childhood moving between army bases. With a degree in social work as a “working passport” she has lived in Australia, Canada and England. Now happily settled in Ballarat her major passions in life are reading and patchwork.
Jake Parker, student and freelance writer, has contributed to local newspapers such as The Gazette and also volunteered as a fiction reader for Overland.
Bernard Peasley, Melbourne-based writer and short film-maker, has written more than 35 flash and short fictions. He also adapted The Final Measure, The Last of My Kind, Pin-up Boy, Waiting for Sonja and Raptor into short films, and his novel Moskay’s Burden is in progress.
Pavle Radonic, Australian by birth and Montenegrin origin, spent eight years living in SE Asia. Previous work has appeared in Ambit, Big Bridge, Southerly, New World Writing and Citron and Antigonish Reviews. A mountainous blog holding mainly the Asian writing is here http://axialmelbourne.blogspot.com/
Barry Revill is a Melbourne-based writer whose work includes the stories, Harry, The Kill, and The Doctor. He also wrote eighteen Gardening Muses columns for the Melbourne Age and a monologue, Cry of a Forgotten Woman, performed at Melbourne Writers Theatre. His collection, Both Sides, was issued by Amazon, and Ginninderra Press has recently published Diary of a Young Boy.
Clare Rhoden is a writer, editor, reviewer and serious dog-lover from Naarm (Melbourne). She suffers from genre-blindness, and her novels include a dystopian trilogy, a WWI historical romance, and a middle grade fantasy with cats. Her short fiction has been published in several anthologies. See https://clarerhoden.com
Chris Ringrose lives in Melbourne. His poetry has won the Australian Poetica Christi Prize, and been presented in Krakow, Poland, for the UNESCO City of Literature Project, and his stories have been published in Melbourne Subjective (2014), Flashing the Square (2014) and the journal South Circular. His website is: www.cringrose.com
Andrea Rowe is a children’s and YA author and copywriter for the Royal Flying Doctors Service Kids Club, Indigenous Reading Project, and several not-for-profit organisations. Her debut book Jetty Jumping has just been released by Little Hare, and her work has appeared in various anthologies and magazines. She lives on a blustery beach track on the Mornington Peninsula. https://andrearowe.com.au/
Annie Ryall’s writing was born in the fertile theatrical milieu of 70s Melbourne while dropping out of her Arts degree. Since then she has written several comic plays including Uploading the Goddess, performed at The Husk Theatre in 2012. https://writingbackwards.net/
Peter Symons, writer, historian, teacher and freelance editor, has had stories published in Island, Overland and The Victorian Writer. He is also the author of a short history, Caring for the Community: a History of Doncare 1989 to 2009. www.petersymons.org
Vacen Taylor is a Gold Coast-based writer whose works include the Starchild Series, The Returning and poetry published in anthologies. Her play, Crazy Plastic Love, was selected to be part of the Playwrights Program, directed, and performed as a performance reading at HOTA Gold Coast. www.vacentaylor.com
Elizabeth Terry began writing after leaving a corporate career. Her stories are either science-fiction, thrillers or have a quirky twist of events, one being adapted into a play. The Thornwood Secret is an anthology of some of these stories. She is working on a novel set in 1960s London.
Chris Thomson is an ex-teacher who has had short stories published in journals such as The Education Quarterly (EQ). He has also written curriculum training materials and guidelines. With extra time on his hands Chris is now developing his fiction writing and also learning to grow vegetables.
Eva White was born in Vienna, grew up in the Bronx, and has lived most of her life in Melbourne. Now she divides her time between New York City and Melbourne. Her stories have been published in Australia and the US, including in the New York Times.
