| JO FORESTIER | |
| GLORIA HOUSTON | ROSE PETERSON |
| LIBBY GLEESON | RONDA ROSS |
| FRANCES ISAAC |
Jo
Forestier was born on the tiny island of Alicudi (Italy). She was educated in
Italy until the age of ten. Then she came to Australia in 1950 where she
continued her education up to the age of fifteen. Life experience has been her
"teacher". She came to Canberra in 1968 and continues to be an active member of
the Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW), the Diverse Writers' Group and the
ACE Writers' Group. When she is not writing she does much volunteer work.
Her publications include: You are My Seasons and My Hearts Country.
There are numerous anthologies in which her poems appear, including: The Universe We Are, Out of the Golden Silence Off the Edge and Australian Spirit (Edited M.Beazley), Sky of Fire-Tree of Ice, (Co-authored with Basia Meder and Barbie Robinson), Sky of Fire-A year of Recovery (co-authored with Barbie Robinson).
She is
Writer-in-Residence at Queanbeyan High School.
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LIBBY GLEESON
Australia
Libby Gleeson was born in Young, NSW, Australia and spent most of her early life in the country before attending the University of Sydney.
After graduating she taught at Picton, a small country town outside Sydney. Then she travelled and worked overseas. While in London, she started writing her first novel "Eleanor Elizabeth". She now lives in Sydney with her husband and three children where she writes for young children of all ages.
GLORIA HOUSTON
North Carolina, USA
Dr Gloria
Houston is a native of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. She has been teacher and
professor in four States and three universities (Grades K-12 through to PhD
level), a flight attendant, freelance writer, author and writing consultant. Her
mother, Ruthie at 90 years old still runs the family "Sunny Brook Store",
featured in "The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree", with help from her friends
who are all octogenarians! Ruthie has received the title of "Heavenly Angel" of
the town.
Houston's major works include The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree,
My Great Aunt Arizona, LitteJim, LittleJim's Dreams, LittleJim's Gift, Miss
Dorothy and her Bookmobile, Bright Freedom's Song, Mountain Valour, and her
latest publication: How Writing Works
(For Teachers and Writers).
Her books have won more than forty national awards and one international award.
She has been given much professional recognition including Who's Who in
Education, International Who's Who of Authors and many others.
She is on the Board of Academic Advisors of the CPAW Global Educational Network.
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FRANCES ISAAC ( Pen Name Neela Liyanagedera)
Sri Lanka/Australia
Canberra author Frances Isaac (pen-name of Neela Liyanagedera, adopted in honour of her late parents) has been a fiction writer for over twenty-five years and has worked as a journalist and freelance writer in Australia, the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka.
She started her journalistic career as a freelancer and became a sub-editor in the ‘Sun’, which was a national daily in Sri Lanka. She was a producer of programmes in Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation before leaving for England. She gained further qualifications in journalism and writing in England and the London School of Journalism.
She worked as a Senior Journalist in the Harrow Observer in England and also did freelance work for other newspapers and periodicals in the UK. After migrating to Australia, she continued to work as a journalist and freelance writer in Queensland, Victoria and Canberra.
Some work by Frances covers Australian and Sri Lankan social and cultural issues. Some stories have been prize winners. Her dominant interest has been writing fiction and her work has been anthologised widely in both Australia and overseas, and broadcast on BBC.
Her most recent work “Footprints on Quicksand” was published in 2004. Her publication “Strands of Serendipity” has been translated into the Singhalese language and published in Sri Lanka.
She was a member of Invite a Writer and she visited schools, women’s groups etc., giving lectures on writing and conducting workshops. As a member of Invite a Writer she conducted workshops at ANU’s Department of Continuing Education on writing and publishing.
Ralph Elliot, Emeritus Professor of English at the Australian National University has characterised some of her published work as “Literary gems worthy of comparison with Jeffery Archer’s masterly short stories.”
Frances left for England in 1974 and migrated with her husband and three children to Australia in 1985.
She has been featured on ArtsSound FM, 2XX and ITN - The national television and radio in Sri Lanka, ABC 2CN-Breakfast Show, Ozwrite to name a few.
An excerpt of a poem of hers entitled “The Lonely Lake” was included in a calendar produced by the Australian Association of the Teaching of English and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association - the calendar commemorated their Joint National Conference in 1998. Frances was involved with the arts such as films and drama but maintained a sustained interest in writing
Leonie McMahon is an author, a health practitioner and presenter. She is an Osteopath, Acupuncturist, Homeopath, Naturopath, Counsellor and Clinical Hypnotherapist who has been involved in healing work for over 35 years. Her latest interest is working with Emotional Healing especially involving humour.
She has a rich and varied background. She has served on Boards of Inquiry, been an examiner, Secretary and PR Officer for the United Chiropractors Association of Australia, President and now Secretary of the Acupuncture Association of Australia from which she received Life Membership; Director of the Sydney College of Chiropractic and Osteopathy for 35 years in addition to serving on the Advisory Board for the Centre of Chiropractic at Macquarie University. Leonie was awarded the Shield of Honour for outstanding services to the Chiropractic profession in 1983 (the first time awarded to a woman.)
Leonie has presented and given radio interviews with ‘talk-back’ Australia wide. She has been published in Australia’s newspapers and journals and has been on local and national TV. Leonie possesses vitality and fun with which she can inspire an audience, impart information, and make any presentation thoroughly enjoyable.
Leonie has been involved in the “Free To Be Me” personal development seminars for the last 15 years. Her counselling work is a natural extension of her natural and drug free healing.
Her personal publications are non-fiction around Health.
·
Why Am I So Tired
Pan McMillan 1991
·
Freedom from Pain and Distress
Pan McMillan 1995
· History of the Acupuncture Association of Australia 1997
·
Natural Health with Humour
Self published 2006
·
Laugh Away Your Stress
Self published 2006
ROSE PETERSON
Rose Peterson was born
in Yugoslavia of Czech/Hungarian parents and later moved to Australia where she
grew up in Wagga Wagga (rural New South Wales). She studies at the University of
New England and The University of Sydney gaining her BA and Dip.Teach. She spent
years teaching Ancient History to students sitting for their Higher School
Certificate and now teaches the subject at adult education centres.
Other activities include researching, writing and presenting stories from
Australian History on Sydney Radio for two years during Australia's Bicentennial
Celebrations; working as an interviewer/presenter on Community Radio; guest
lecturing at the University of NSW; holding offices on numerous committees,
including the National Trust of Australia and the Sydney Opera House Trust. She
is currently Chairperson of the Blake Prize for Religious Art.
Her very successful Warped Time has proved popular in schools, especially with
the new emphasis on boys' education. She is currently planning two sequels to
this, making it a trilogy
Ronda Ross, was born in Alice springs Central Australia in 1945. As a five year old she was placed in care at the St Mary's Home for outback children. She then attended the Primary School in Alice Springs and then Anzac Hill High School where she attended between 1958 and 1960.
She always made up little dittys over the years. Then after she had children she used to write poems and hide them in her handbag from my family. One day her husband was looking for the car keys in her handbag, and he discovered her poems.
Many years went by and finally she decided to take early retirement from mher employment. She enrolled at a "Creative Writing" Course at the Batchelor College in Alice Springs, a college that caters to Indigenous people who come from far and wide.
She continues to write, when she has time and is often asked to read her poetry at special gatherings.
CHRIS WALLACE-CRABBE (Australia)
Chris
Wallace-Crabbe was born in Melbourne and studies at the University of Melbourne
and at Yale in the USA. He has taught in Australia and at Harvard as Visiting
Professor of Australian Studies. He is currently Emeritus Professor of the
Australia Centre at the University of Melbourne.
As a former Director of the Centre, he placed particular emphasis on the unique
development of Australian culture and on the ways in which it relates to the
cultures of other nations. He continues to promote this around the world. Thus,
it is most appropriate that he was invited to launch this year's "CPAW
International Writers' Week".
He was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities in 1984 and is the
winner of the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry (1986), the Dublin Prize for the Arts
and Sciences (1987), the Human Rights Award for Poetry (1992) and the
D.J.O.Hearn for Poetry (1995).
In addition to his prose works, literary criticism and varied anthologies,
Wallace-Crabbe has published fourteen volumes of poetry,including For Crying Out
Loud (Oxford University Press, 1990),Rungs of Time (Oxford University Press,
1993) and Whirling (Oxford University Press, 1998). One of his recent books is
By and Large (Carcanet, 2001).