INTERVIEW: Poet Barbara Temperton

Q&A with Barbara Temperton, poet and author of Southern Edge

When did you start writing?
Around the age of six, when I finally got hand, pen and paper coordinated: I stole loose-leaf paper from the public toilets at the Port Hedland swimming pool, needle and thread from my mother’s sewing box, and took refuge in the cubby house in our back yard to make my “books”.

Natasha Lester wins 2008 T.A.G. Hungerford Award

Culture and the Arts Minister John Day presented Natasha Lester with the 2008 T.A.G. Hungerford Award for Fiction at a ceremony in Perth last night.

Screen rights optioned for bestselling cyber-bullying novel

Destroying Avalon, the first Australian novel to tackle the cyber-bullying phenomenon, is one step closer to becoming a film.

Indigenous authors find international audiences

Readers in South Korea and Italy will soon be able to enjoy the work of Indigenous authors Sally Morgan, Tjalaminu Mia and Blaze Kwaymullina, among others.

Western Australian science fiction writer makes national short list

Western Australian author Simon Haynes has been short listed for a national Aurealis award for Hal Spacejock: No Free Lunch (Fremantle Press). Haynes’ story is one of five recognized in the category of best science fiction novel.

Caroline Caddy wins prestigious University of Melbourne poetry prize

Western Australian poet Caroline Caddy has won the 2008 Wesley Michel Wright Prize in Poetry for Esperance (Fremantle Press).

Author joins Australia’s last whalers for 30-year anniversary

Chris Pash, author of The Last Whale, will return to the English-speaking world’s last whaling station this month for a reunion of ex-whalers to mark the 30-year anniversary of the end of whaling in Australia.

A brush with the Botanical Artists Group

Over 180 people joined author Janda Gooding and members of the Botanical Artists Group for the launch of Brush with Gondwana on Thursday 6 November.

Kinsella wins Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize

The 2008 Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize has gone to Fremantle Press writer John Kinsella for his poem Vixerunt.

Can you imagine going through life with the literacy skills of a six year old?

Western Australian writers; Sally Morgan, May O’Brien, Joan Winch and Lucy Dann, plus ex-Fremantle Docker, Troy Cook, joined forces to launch Indigenous Literacy Day in Western Australia on Wednesday 3rd September.