Novel
I am passionate about the power of stories to connect, inform, heal and empower individuals, groups, communities and nations. I offer the skills to assist you to achieve any of these goals using written and/or spoken words.
With 20 years experience as an author, editor, broadcaster and teacher, I know how to work with people from diverse backgrounds to craft, edit and hone work and bring it to the attention of a broader audience.
What I do:
• Teach, tutor, mentor
• Write a variety of fictional/non-fictional genres
• Research
• Produce audio packages/podcasts
• Run workshops
Who I’ve worked for (details on request):
• Media organisations (ABC Kimberley)
• Publishing houses (Magabala Books)
• Schools & universities (Curtin and Newcastle Universities, Australian independent, Catholic and government schools)
Awards & Recognition:
• Winner: 2010 TAG Hungerford Award
• Longlisted: 2013 Miles Franklin and Dobbie Literary Awards
• Shortlisted: 2021 Penguin Literary Award
• Shortlisted: 2020 Australian Writers’ Guild and Audible’s On Air Podcast Writing Competition
Please don’t hesitate to in touch to discuss your work and ambitions. This bit costs nothing: [email protected]
Below is a small taste of my own writing.
Novel
‘… this is one of those rare novels that actually changes the way you look at the world.’ The Weekend Australian
Reportage
By ABC Open Producer Jacqueline Wright for ABC Mother Tongue, 7 Jul 2016. I first met Purtungana when I was working at Pundulmurra College in South Hedland as a lecturer in the Indigenous Australian Language Workers Program. She was a keen student, often the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Traveller asked five Australian novelists to write about the one spot in Australia that has most informed their writings.
Essay
Guest edited by writer and researcher Stephen Kinnane, this issue is a celebration of Indigenous writing and culture.
Western Australia is also huge and, because it is separated from the eastern populations by such a vast desert, it is often considered an island of its own. Here Western Australia's most exciting and innovative writers create unique issues and perspectives which challenge the ideas and presumptions of the rest of Australia.
Written in the 1920s, Brumby Innes confronts the turbulent relations between the sexes and the races in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. This new edition includes introductions from Jacqueline Wright and Maryrose Casey. It is published with another Prichard play from the 1920s, Bid Me To Love, set in fashionable white rich society in the lush hills outside Perth.
There are a thousand ways to connect to country. Kimberley Stories is one of them. Once known, never forgotten, the Kimberley gets under your skin.
Creative Non-fiction
Purple Prose introduces fifteen new works of non-fiction by Australian women writers, each responding to the colour purple. In their hands, purple takes on many meanings. From a story about King George’s coronation gown to pigeon fanciers and the Dockers’ Purple Haze, this is a book for women readers everywhere.
Stage
Maggot is sitting on a gold mine. He’d be a happy man if only the local council would leave him alone. To make things worse his friends are gathering like vultures.
Short Story
Twenty-four stories selected from 260 Margaret River Short Story Competition entries. These are stories about people who stand aside from the mainstream world, and see it, as Emily Dickinson would say, ‘aslant’.