2010 Poets
Alistair Bain
Alistair P D Bain: Anglican priest at large (between gigs), and Counselling student at Notre Dame. Currently surfing towards the crest of a sine wave of poetry and fiction that began too many years ago – planning to stay on the board this time! Had poetry and fiction published over the years in local journals and anthologies. Thrilled to be part of the Creative Connections initiative!
Amanda Joy
Amanda Joy is a poet, sculptor, installation artist and songwriter born in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She currently lives, works and gardens in Fremantle.
Her poetry has been published online and in Cottonmouth, Up The Staircase Literary Review, Killpoet, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Black Rider Press, Another Lost Shark, The Toronto Quarterly, Black Listed Magazine, Stylus Poetry Journal and The Best Australian Poems 2009.
A tiny, yet sincere chapbook of her poetry, Not Enough To Fold was lovingly published through Verve Bath Press early this year. A more sizeable binding of her wordage, In Hand will be released in the U.S. in April.
She blogs her poetry semi regularly at her website www.littleglasspen.com and www.myspace.com/amanda_joy1970.
Andrew Burke
Andrew Burke is an Australian poet and writer who has been publishing since the mid-Sixties. His poems have appeared in every major Australian literary magazine, and a New & Selected is waiting patiently in the wings for the printer's ink.
Carol Millner
Originally from New Zealand, Carol Millner is a community theatre practitioner and an award winning short-story writer. In 2008 a significant selection of her poems was published alongside the work of four other West Australian poets in the collection, 'Amber Contains the Sun'. Carol has also been published in 'An Alphabetical Amulet' (2010), 'Indigo' (2009), 'Lines in the Sand' (2008) and on line at styluspoetry journal. Carol has three children aged 2,7 and 9.
Caroline Sambridge
Caroline Sambridge, writes bush poetry and short stories. She lives in Belmont, and has also lived in the UK, country WA, as well as Queensland, NSW and Victoria. She has also been to Ireland and kissed the blarney stone, plus she has been to Thailand and Laos.
Catherine Szathmary
Catherine Szathmary lives in Bridgetown with her partner Lee and her daughter Mollie. She is currently renovating an old home to bring in winter light and make a writing/contemplating space for creating poetry. Catherine has been a part of Creative Connections since its inception and has enjoyed collaborating with artists to bring art and the written word together.
Christina Gammon
Christina Gammon lives in Perth's northern suburbs and works as a registered nurse at Joondalup Health Campus. Christina has always loved writing and has recently begun to explore the local poetry community through the Peter Cowan Writer's Centre. She has had poems published in Lake Lines anthology.
Christopher Konrad
Chris has lived in Western Australia his whole life with forty of those years in the hills around Perth. Father and mother were Austrian migrants who moved to WA in the 1950’s. He is married with four children aged from 15 - 24 years. Chris has had a varied life - first as a tradesman Cabinet Maker completing an apprenticeship with his father. He changed career and worked for the last thirteen years in human services as a counsellor/educator/community development. Chris has had several articles published in journals to do with Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drug problems and education. He has completed a Master Social Science and is currently undertaking PH.D in creative writing and has had poems published in Thirst, WetInk, Word is Out, Page 17 and Staples and in the online publications PixelPapers , WA Poets, Creatrix and Perigee. Was accepted into a FAW(WA) poetry Master Class and mentorship program in 2007, and has just published in an anthology with 4 other WA poets. The book is titled Amber Contains the Sun and was launched at the Perth Writers’ Festival early in 2009.
Claire Grose
A fourth generation Australian, I was born at Guildford W.A. and was educated in Perth. I have a B.A. (UWA) and live in Perth with my husband. We have three children and seven grandchildren. Apart from numerous overseas and Aussie travels I have lived in Perth all my life. I was a Fellow of FAW and have been a member of SWW for more than twenty years (serving on the Committee and also as President). I am also a member of W.A. Poets Inc. Over the years I have had many poems published in The West Australian and other newspapers, journals, anthologies and magazines and have had many short stories published. My main love is poetry and I write both traditional and contemporary forms and have won various prizes along the way. I suppose a writer never retires, but these days I read more than I write.
Colleen O'Grady
I have travelled extensively since I was born in South Australia, with most of the travelling occurring throughout Western Australia, where I spent most of my life and attended bush schools and city high schools. My marriage years were spent on remote sheep stations, then in the farming community of that large State. From this union came four sons. I divorced and moved to the city of Perth, thence to Sydney, but am now in Queensland. I am from the family of New South Wales O’Gradys who were writers, with John O’Grady of a ‘Weird Mob’ fame being my father; and another relative, my great Uncle, being the blind poet Jack Mathieu of Queensland.
Coral Carter
Nomadic life taken her to Marree, Great Sandy Desert, Southern Cross, Iron Knob and Ulaan Baatar.
Now resides in Kalgoorlie where she pursues poetry and occasionally catches a poem.
Began reading at WA Spring Poetry Festival in 2005.
Third place in the National Poetry Slam WA finals in 2009.
Published online and in a couple of now defunct journals.
Dean Meredith
Dean lives in Swanview & works for the Dept of Defence. He writes poetry, haiku and senryu about all sorts of things including love, loss, people and nature. He is a committee member of WA Poets Inc and has been published in Creatrix.
Deb Micallef
Debra Ratcliffe
Debra Ratcliffe is a singer/guitarist who has written and performed her own songs in the late nineties and has recently begun writing again. She performs mainly folk/country but also dabbles in other styles. In the mid eighties, she performed at country music venues and won a couple of talent quests in between taking care of her three sons, two with disabilities. She has performed from time to time since then but, is now working her way back. She recently performed at Jackadders Music club as a support act.
Gary Colombo De Piazzi
Gary is an emerging poet who enjoys exploring nature and human sentiment in poetry that is primarily free verse. He has also dabbled with formal forms of poetry and is currently exploring Haiku.
His poetry has been published in various Western Australian and Australian anthologies and journals, most recently in “Creatrix”- an e-journal produced by WA Poets Inc. He was a featured poet at the 2009 WA Spring Poetry Festival and joint winner of the 2009 Creatrix Haiku Prize.
Dr Glen Phillips
Poet and university professor, born in Southern Cross, Western Australia. His latest books are: The Moon Belongs to No One (Salt, in press), Redshift: 42 Name Day Poems (ICLL, 2009), Shanghai Suite ( ICLL, 2009), Singing Granites: Poems (Oversteps Books, 2008), with Anne Born, Contrary Rhetoric (Fremantle Press, 2008) - a co-edited collection of Kinsella’s landscape lectures, an FAW anthology, Lines in the Sand (TCH Press, 2008) - poetry editor - and Spring Burning: Poems (Salt, 1999). Glen is internationally published in several languages and Director of the Landscape and Language Centre at Edith Cowan University. He is represented in some 20 anthologies and is author or editor of 18 books.
Jacqui Merckenschlager
The N.S.W. mining town of Broken Hill, where Jacqui lived as a child, instilled in her a love of the Australian outback, its flora and fauna. This love is evident in much of her writing and also helped to develop her green thumb. She is a retired teacher and is respected as a self-taught botanist and plant propagator. Jacqui’s poem ‘Mining Town Pianist’ reflects on her childhood. It won South Australia’s 2009 Tom Black Memorial Prize. Jacqui’s poetry appears in Australian and overseas anthologies such as S.A. Friendly Street Poets’ ‘After The Race’ and ‘Prosopisia’ (India). She has co-written two musical plays and a book of poetry ‘Captured Moments’ with husband Max. Her website is www.scriptsongs.com
Jan Napier
Jan Napier has published two books of short stories, Smiles To Go and All The Fun Of The Fair. Her poetry has been printed in Tamba, Speedpoets, Yellow Moon, The Word Is Out, The Mozzie, Creatrix and in several other reputable publications (both in New Zealand and the US). Her short stories have appeared in Salvador Dali And Friends, Antipodean SF, The Countryman, Positive Words and Writer's Friend. Jan also reviews books for the online magazine Antipodean SF. She first became involved with Creative Connections in 2008, and is delighted to be one of the contributing poets again in 2009.
Jennifer McRae Poulter
Award winning poet, teaching myself art & photography in order to illustrate my own work. Published in Quadrant, Divan, Antipodes, Social Alternatives, Speed Poets, The Mozzie, Paper Wasp etc . Presenter/workshop convener for the flagship education program for QPF in 2007 and in 2008. Readings numerous. http://www.jrmcrae_subversive.weebly.com http://www.wix.com/JRPoulter_JRMcRae/Where-Butterfleyes http://www.scribd.com/JRPoulter http://www.jrmcrae.wordpress.com http://www.jrmcrae.blogspot.com http://www.facebook.com/J.R.McRae.Poulter?ref=profile
Haiku, J.R. McRae -
thumbnail moon print
impressed on the flesh
of a cool evening
Jenny De Garis
Jenny de Garis has long enjoyed interactions between writing, art and the natural world. Exploring these paintings through poetry has provided a good balance now that she lives in the Blackwood Valley and needs strong enticement in to the computer from her gardening and walking – which is also why her website: http://jjdeg.wordpress.com may not be up to date!
Over the past twenty years Jenny has organized and led many workshops in art galleries and in national parks. For most of her workshops Jenny has organized follow-up group anthologies, but her own poems, though widely published did not find a book of their own until 2007: Dance of Light is a photographic as well as poetic celebration of the nature and site-specific art of Piney Lakes, a suburban reserve of the Beeliar Wetlands. It is available at the AGWA shop.
Julie Fearns-Pheasant
Julie is an artist and teacher who has been professionally exhibiting since 1987. Her current media is illustration and digital media but has worked in silk, paint, ceramics and printmaking.
She has a B.A in Fine Art, a Graduate Diploma in Education and is currently completing a Masters in Cross-Disciplinary Arts.
Julie has exhibited extensively and has had seven solo shows, mainly of prints and illustrations.
She has represented Australia in three International Abilympics, winning four gold medals and two silver.
Julie has a congenital left sided disability and had breast cancer in 2006. Having a disability has never been a block for her to create, if anything it has made her more determined.
Julienne Juschke
Involvement with Creative Connections and WA Poets is one of the many joys in the poetic life of Julienne Juschke. She believes that the creative community in Perth is strong, full of support and opportunities, with loads of potential for innovation.
Julienne is particularly enthusiastic about projects, such as Creative Connections, that find ways for people with various types of disability to develop their own creative potential.
Karen Murphy
Kevin Gillam
Kevin Gillam: is a West Australian poet with two books of poems published, “Other Gravities” (2003) and “permitted to fall” (2007), both by Sunline Press. He has also had two chapbooks of poems published by Picaro Press, been a feature poet on ABC Poetica, and appeared at numerous poetry festivals around Australia. He has a forthcoming volume of poetry with Fremantle Press scheduled for 2011.
Laurel Lamperd
I live on a farm on the south-east coast of Western Australia and belong to a local writer’s group, Southern Scribes.
I write poetry, short stories and novels. Many of my poems and short stories have been published in newspapers, magazines and on the net.
Now a lot of my writing has found publishing outlets on the Internet, which has become a lifeline to isolated writers.
I have published six books of fiction, which are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and downloaded from www.Smashwords.com
My website and blog are at www.authorsden.com
You can join me at Facebook, My Space, http://twitter.com/gayedawn
Dr Liana Joy Christensen
Liana is a Fremantle-based writer, who has contributed to Creative Connections since its inception, because she believes deeply in the philosophy and vision of this inclusive project. Her work also appears in anthologies and literary journals in Australia (Southerly, Indigo, Arena, PAN, The Word is Out, Creatrix, Thirst), North America (Ascent, Organisation and the Environment: Arts and the Environment), India (Prosopisia) and Taiwan (The Tamkang Review). She was the original editor of Western Australia’s wildlife and nature magazine Landscope, and explores these themes in some of her poetry. She was an invited poet at Perdu, the national poetry venue in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in June 2006. She was also guest poet at the second International Animals and Society Conference held in Hobart in June 2007. Her first chapbook Wild Familiars was launched at the Spring Poetry Festival in Perth in September 2006. It was awarded one of five Honourable Mentions in the Writers Digest International Self Published book awards (from a field of 138). Wild Familiars was reviewed in PAN: Philosophy Activism Nature 4, 2007. She has recently won a 2010 Emerging Writers residency for the Fellowship of Writers Western Australia and the Peter Cowan Writers’ Centre, and a Different Voices residency at Varuna in October 2009.
Liz Nicholls
Liz Nicholls has developed her interest in poetry and haiku
through participation in workshops and courses presented
by the City of Perth Library, W.A. Poets Inc and Peter Cowan
Writers Centre. Her haiku have been published in Creatrix.
Mardi May
2009 will be the third year of Mardi May’s fruitful association with the dynamic Creative Connections group. Mardi’s poetry has often been inspired by the visual connection with art and photography. Her poetry has appeared in many exhibitions and in five of her books of prose and poetry, she has worked with a photographer. The poetic response often explores a deeper level of meaning to the art work and searches for the significant and symbolic elements portrayed. Knowing the artist’s background adds another layer to the poet’s interpretation. Creative Connections challenges and rewards the poet willing to explore this world. Mardi is a member of the Management Committee and Literary Advisory Board at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre where she facilitates the poetry group. Mardi has recently launched her fourth book of poetry, a verse novella, 'The Shifting Distance'.
Maureen Sexton
Maureen is a freelance writer, poet, haiku poet, editor, photographer, digital media artist, webmistress and event organiser. She has vast writer-in-the-community experience and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Writing, which she completed at Edith Cowan University, with some of her studies undertaken at Murdoch University and Flinders University. She was a co-founder of WA Poets Inc, the annual WA Spring Poetry Festival, Creative Connections Art and Poetry exhibitions, The Word is Out Poetry Journals, creatrix poetry journal and Walking on Water readings. Her poetry and haiku have been widely published internationally and nationally. She is currently: HaikuOz WA regional representative, Project Coordinator of Creative Connections Art and Poetry Exhibitions, and on the editing team/selection panel of creatrix poetry journal.
Max Merckenschlager
Max writes rhyming “bush” verse and free-form poetry. Successes include national bush championship winning poems in 2006, 2007 and 2009, and Grenfell NSW statuettes for best open poem in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009. His poetry has appeared in a number of anthologies, including Melbourne Books ‘Award Winning Australian Writing’ (2008, 2009 and 2010) and ‘Culture is … Australian Stories Across Cultures 2008’ (Wakefield Press). Max has two published books of poetry, ‘Legacy’ and ‘Captured Moments’ (Ginninderra Press). Reconciliation, Australian history and the natural environment feature strongly in his work. Lyrics of Max’s ‘Sorry Day Song’ were included in a Reconciliation SA education pack delivered to 1500 SA schools in 2008. The song can be heard and downloaded free on his website www.scriptsongs.com
Meryl Manoy
Meryl Manoy was born in Mt. Lawley in 1930. She attended Inglewood State School (now Mt.Lawley Primary School) and Perth Modern School.
In 1950 she graduated from Kindergarten Training College. Love of poetry was instilled in childhood with 8 years of elocution lessons.
During her 5 years at Modern School Meryl regularly contributed poems to the school magazine. Throughout her life Meryl has delighted in marking special family occasions, travels and excursions with rhyming verse.
Since joining PCWC and WAPI in 2009 she has learnt to write sonnets, villanelles, free verse and haiku. She has had numerous poems and haiku
published on-line in Creatrix. Meryl came equal 1st in their 2009 Haiku Competition. Her poems appeared in PCWC anthology “Lake Lines 2009”. She has read her poetry frequently on ECU Twin Cities Radio 89.7 FM. Meryl plans to produce a Chap-book later in 2010. Besides poetry, Meryl’s passion is body-surfing.
Natasha Adams
Natasha resides in the Hills of Perth. She describes the writing process as meditative and welcomes Poetry as a chance to get in touch with people and nature. She especially enjoys writing Haiku and lyrical poetry and is currently experimenting with her writing style. A relative new comer to the Perth Poetry Scene, Natasha joined the Creative Connections Poetry Team in 2008. Natasha is strong supporter of the rights of People with Disabilities and believes it is important for everyone to see the person not the disability.
Nathan Hondros
Nathan is a writer of poetry, fiction and journalism who has recently returned to Perth, Australia after a living for a while in Europe. As well as working on countless new poems and releasing a collection of short fiction Man and Beast with actor, playwright and dramaturg Damon Lockwood, he is working on The King’s Road, a novella he began in France and Italy. He has published in The Weekend Australian, Westerly, Masthead, and has had his work produced and performed on ABC Radio.
Paula Jones
Paula is firstly a teacher who has lived and taught in Japan, Vietnam and Singapore for over 10 years, where she developed a love of spice and simplicity. Currently she is a community radio presenter at Ellenbrook fm; work for a TESOL training company in Perth and is Chairperson of the Katharine Susannah Prichard (KSP) Writers' Centre in Greenmount. She writes short fiction although her passion is poetry, many of which have been published locally and interstate in indigo, Blue Dog, Poetrix as well as online. Her family has been connected with Disabilities Services for over 25 years and she has also worked at some hostels, including Bristol Hostel, during her study years. “How the world turns circles.”
Peter Jeffery OAM
Former Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Murdoch University and an MA from University of Birmingham [UK] as well as Film Studies founder at Curtin University. Currently Chair of WINGS, the cross cultural group, and Chair of WA POETS INC., and Chair of COMMUNITY TELEVISION PERTH, and WEST TELEVISION and SUNYATA MEDITATION and COMMUNITY CENTRE. Has won several key poetry prizes in the Sixties, judged literary contests, taught Creative Writing and has many friends in the Poetry Community. Thinks CREATIVE CONNECTIONS is a superb expression of the human creativity in us all.
Peter Rondel
The candle of desire will light my way
But the winds of fate keep blowing out the flame.
I took up writing because I have no other talent. Fortune favours the brave (and the determined), so I celebrated my sixty ninth birthday this year, with degree in writing at ECU. To keep my hand in, I have over eight hundred poems on alpoetry.com, under the penname of El pescador (The fisherman), another sample of my weird sense of humour that encourages me to write “bush poetry”. As the artist paints his visions upon an empty canvass, so the poet writes his dreams and hidden memories. Words are like a world of Leggo blocks, waiting to be assembled.
Rose Van Son
Rose is a poet who loves language and the beautiful sounds language makes. She has been published in many journals and has run poetry classes and won several awards. She loves reading her work at various venues. She enjoys writing (and reading!) all sorts of poetry including haiku.
Sandra McAlpine
A 5th generation West Australian with a love of words, reading, writing and rhyming poetry. My deceased parents are from the Nannap and Manjimup regions of WA.
I began writing in 1997 and have a small collection of poems; several of which have been published.
In 1999 I attended a Poetry Convention in Washington DC USA, with the assistance of a Cultural Grant from the ‘Shire of Roebourne’, in the northwest Pilbara region of WA.
Dr Sally Clarke
Dr Sally Clarke’s interest in Community writing and other peoples’ stories, as well as her particular interest in Australian war literature, came together when she wrote the Donald Robert Stuart biography, ‘In the Space Behind His Eyes’. The biography was short-listed for the 2006 WA Premier’s Book Award. She participated in the 2007 FAWWA Poetry Master Class Series and is one of five poets from this initiative to receive Department of Culture and the Arts funding to publish their anthology, ‘Amber Contains the Sun’, launched during the 2009 Perth International Arts Festival. Sally is a Past President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (ACT), Past Chairperson and life member of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Foundation, community writer, teacher of creative writing, freelance writer and editor. Her poems, articles and award winning short stories have been published in Western Australian and eastern states magazines, newspapers and anthologies.
Sarah Campbell-Wood (Saz Campbell)
Sarah lives in Perth, WA. Her pen name is Saz Campbell. She is a Murdoch University Graduate, having completed a degree at age fifty, in English, Australian Indigenous Studies and Creative Writing. She is currently doing an honors degree at Murdoch incorporating the writing of her autobiography, which might one day raise an eyebrow or two. She has self-published two books of poetry/ prose. Her poetry has been published in poetry journals and related e-journals. She is tutoring and editing for Grandparents writing memoirs for their Grandchildren. This is important for denied Grandparents, because, ‘……writing leaves traces of us’ - Helene Cixous. Her most satisfying achievement has been the founding of GranPower, a support group with accompanying website www.granpower.org.au for Grandparents denied contact with their Grandchildren. She is also the newsletter editor for PFLAG Perth, a support group for parents, families and friends of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual and intersex young people and adults. Her articles on topics related to gay issues and/or denied Grandparents have been published in the Connect Groups (WISH) website, Seniors WA news, COTAWA newsletter, Grandparents Australia news and the Have-a-Go Newspaper. She has been a volunteer assistant at El Kanah, a Christian Guest House in Marysville Victoria, over many years. Sadly now this beautiful town and surrounding areas are all gone, with tragic losses of life, destroyed in the Victorian bushfires of 2009. She is a peace loving woman who walks gently on this Earth, and a Grandma who cherishes making memories with her Grandchildren while sharing their little worlds.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Scott-Patrick is a poet & writer living in Perth. He works as a journalist for OUTinPerth, a lesbian and gay news and lifestyle community street press. His work has been published in such anthologies as neoteric, Interactive Geographies, naked eye, Poetry Creations, Lines of Wisdom , Red Leaves and Through the Clock’s Working. He also edits a zine, the underground literary street art adventure that is MoTHER [has words...]. He recently won the 2009 PressPress Chapbook Award for his poetry collection songs for the ordinary mass, a collection which fuses urban sampling with Gregorian musical notations. The chapbook is due out August.
Sue Clennell
Sue has had short stories published by The West Australian, Imago, Idiom 23 and in various anthologies. Her poetry has been published by The Weekend Australian, The West Australian, Quadrant, Studio, Southern Review, Creatrix, Speedpoets and the school text books Appreciating Poetry and Secondary English. Sue's prose poems The Moon is an Ice Cream was runner-up in the 2006 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize, and Loquats must be ripe commended in the 2007 Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize. Her book The Ink Drinkers is available at New Edition bookshop, Fremantle. Sue has recently released a poetry CD titled 'The Van Gogh Cafe.'
Tanya Jaw
Trisha Kotai-Ewers
Trisha Kotai-Ewers lives in Perth, Western Australia, where for the last twenty years she has been active in the literary world. Currently President of the Fellowship of Australian Writers (WA) she is also Project Manager for the restoration of FAWWA’s Mattie Furphy House which in the future will house a Foundation for Creative Imagination.
Trisha has had poetry and short prose published and is completing a doctoral thesis at Murdoch University. Her book on communicating with people with dementia, Listen to the Talk of Us: People with dementia speak out, was published by the Alzheimer’s Association in 2007.
Val Neubecker
Val grew up in Melbourne and, after marrying, lived in three states of Australia as well as South Africa, before settling in Perth in 1981. Val wrote for a theatre restaurant for 18 years then progressed into children’s work with two books in 1987. Her work has been accepted by the NSW School Magazine and NZ School Journal, several poems in ‘Bards of the Bush’ for the Farmers Weekly and a children’s picture book with CD was released by Koala Books through TaleSpinners in 2007. Val is a member of The Peter Cowan Writers Centre in Perth and an honorary Board Member of the Paraplegic & Quadriplegic Association of WA.