Members are asked to submit their Bio and a photo for inclusion here. They are published in alphabetical order (surname).

Hazel Baker

Born in Burma of an Iranian Muslim father and an English Catholic mother, Hazel Barker migrated to Perth in 1967, courtesy of her English grandfather. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Western Australia and taught at senior colleges for over a quarter of a century in Perth, Canberra and Brisbane. She moved to Canberra in 1971, and married Colin Barker.

Hazel now lives in Brisbane with her husband and holds a Master’s in nutrition as well as a Diploma in Theology. She devotes her time to reading, writing, growing orchids and bushwalking. From her early years, her passion for books drew her to authors like Walter Scott and Charles Dickens. Her love for historical novels sprang from Scott, and the love of literary novels, from Dickens.

Hazel’s short story Hunger was selected for publication in the 2013 Redlitzer Writing Anthology. Since then, many of her short stories and book reviews have been published in magazines and anthologies.

Hazel’s debut novel Chocolate Soldier. The Story of a Conchie was released by Rhizza Press in 2016 and Book One of her memoirs Heaven Tempers the Wind, was released by Armour Books the same year. Both books are set during World War Two – the former in England and the Far East; the latter in Burma.

Her memoir Heaven Tempers the Wind was a finalist in the Australia & New Zealand-wide CALEB Competition of 2017.

Book Two of her memoirs, The Sides of Heaven was released by Armour Books in February 2018 and was also a Finalist in the 2019 CALEB Competition.

Hazel has presented talks at libraries in Brisbane, Logan, the Gold Coast and in the Redlands area. She is available for further presentations whenever time permits.  http://hazelmbarker.wordpress.com

Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Gretchen has written short stories since she was about seven years old.  Further along, she remembers scribbling on Sitmar Lines ‘Fairstar’ cruise notepaper, a gift from a kindly neighbour, and the theme was predominately travel to fanciful destinations.  She still writes fanciful stories but with better spelling and punctuation.

Sifting through her blog site you will discover Gretchen has a chequered business portfolio and she has written magazine articles, been published in two anthologies, entered many writing competitions, submitted unsolicited manuscripts and endured literary speed dating.  She has written far more book reviews in various formats than she cares to remember.

Since retiring from library services where she did things like storytime and hosting author talks, Gretchen now dabbles in flash fiction and writes short story YA and junior fiction, some of which have been shortlisted or won a prize.  In 2016 Creative Kids Tales awarded her Third Prize for “Dragon Daisies” and in 2019 she was awarded Third Prize and a Highly Commended in Estelle Pinney Writing Competition short story category.

Gretchen is also a member of online kidlit writers group Girl And Duck, run by children’s author Jen Storer, but she enjoys the contact with Society of Women Writers Qld members, sharing ideas and writing activities.  For further inspiration, Gretchen attends literary events around Brisbane and is a lover of libraries, Australian authors and mystery novels.

As well as a dedicated reader, Gretchen is a keen follower of writing and publishing trends, and in another life she would have been a fastidious proof-reader.  She has two goals currently on an indefinite time frame, one is to dust her furniture and the other is to have a book published.  It will be interesting to see which comes first.

Visit Gretchen on Goodreads or her blog Thoughts Become Words https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/

Helen Boardman

In Rhodesia during the 1960s, Helen Jane Pilbrough was born, the second child of five to English parents, Lewis and Irene Pilbrough. She describes her parents as ‘very positive and her family as talented and adventurous.’

She was born in the optimum window of time. Any earlier and she would have died an infant, any later and with her many imperfections, she may have been terminated before birth.

Helen Jane is a brave survivor. She struggled through early childhood enduring; oxygen tents, ear operations, a lung operation, normal childhood diseases, lameness, and deafness. However, these trials did not stop her from enjoying the English language once operations on her ears alleviated some of her hearing loss. By the age of six, having learned to read and write, Helen entered and won her first Rhodesian Allied Arts, Junior Literary Award. She remembers her Mum singing her poem, ‘The little rabbit went hop, hop, hop, Over the fence and he could not stop…’ and the way Mum and Dad were delighted by the ‘meter’ of the poem, though what ‘parking meters’ had to do with it, the young Helen was not sure. Helen went on to earn small sums of money and some fame in the Rhodesian Herald, the National newspaper, writing poems and short stories for ‘Walter Robin’s Children’s Corner.’

In 1980 Rhodesia became Zimbabwe and in 1986 Helen also took on a new name when she married Alan Boardman. The couple Emigrated to Australia in 1998 and came to live in Brisbane.

In 2001 she was involved in a car accident where she did not see a child on a pedestrian crossing and this brought to light her poor eyesight. Known in layman’s terms as tunnel vision, she was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, (RP) a disease affecting the ‘rods and cones’ on the retina. Legally blind by 2007 and unable to continue as a Kindy teacher, she had to find ways of dealing with only three degrees of vision. She has come to rely on adaptive technology to facilitate her craft of writing. She is very grateful for these technological advances and she has enjoyed a measure of writing success recently.

2015 – First Prize for Poetry in the Dickinson Memorial Literary Award

2016 – First Prize for Short Story in the Society of Women Writers Anthology Competition.

2016 – Second Prize for Short Story and First and Second Prize in Poetry – Dickinson Memorial Literary Award.

Helen belongs to two writers groups, Society of Women’s Writers Queensland, (SWWQ) and Writing With A Vision; (WWAV)

As well as enjoying her writing life, she has found great satisfaction in working with the Asperger Syndrome community and their partners. She also enjoys the game of blind sports, Swish, an adapted game of Table Tennis. Her time is divided between sport, volunteering and writing.

Helen lives in Brisbane with her husband Alan and her tortoiseshell cat Bamboo.

Alexandra J Cornwell (Williams)

Born and schooled in south-east Queensland’s Scenic Rim, Alexandra’s first publish poem as a primary school student, “Peacock Behind Bars” was reproduced in a 1979 edition of The Courier Mail.

Alexandra attended high school as a boarder at Somerville House (Brisbane Girls High School) as South Brisbane was being transformed for Expo ’88.

With vague ideas of becoming a teacher, she studied at the University of Queensland (St.Lucia) 1987-1990, majoring in Psychology, English (Australian Literature) and completing Honours in Geographical Sciences.

As an undergraduate she was awarded the Queensland University Ford Memorial Poetry Medal (1989) for “Mr. Blue (or Boy and a Balloon)” and was an active contributor to a series of student poetry anthologies:

• Union College Poets 1987 (with an introduction by Bruce Dawe launched at Union College on 29 October 1987);
• Union College Poets 1988; and
• Union College Poets 1989 (foreword by Tony Thwaites)

After graduating Alexandra moved across the country to Perth, Western Australia for two years. She’d already had her first poem “Hug” published by The Freemantle Arts Review in late 1990, followed by “The Woman’s Song” in the same publication in 1991.

Returning to the NSW north coast in 1993 she commenced a career as a Strategic Town Planner in various local governments, moving a growing family comprising two children and a dog between the north coast and south-western Sydney and Coffs Harbour on the mid north Coast. Returning to Brunswick Heads in 2011 provided an opportunity to volunteer at the Byron Writers Festival (BWF) which she has been enthusiastically supporting since 2012.

In 2017 Alexandra relocated to southern Brisbane where she is working on home renovations and landscaping the front garden between bouts of birdwatching, photography, volunteering at Bluesfest and BWF, walking and travelling with her partner (and apprentice poet) Colin B Gossip.

She feels that her creative muse has returned and is expanding from the occasional piece of poetry (published on her facebook page: Alexandra J Cornwell – poet) into microfiction, short stories, travel blogs and digital photography featured on her occasional blog “The Drabble Writer’s Table” (www.squeakythongs.wordpress.com).

Indrani Ganguly

Indrani Ganguly was born of Bengali-speaking parents in Lucknow, India and lived in many different parts of the country. Her parents imbued her with a strong sense of Indian and world history and culture and a great appreciation of diversity in all its forms.

Indrani studied English Honours and sociology in India and did her Ph.D. on the impact of British occupation on revolution and reform in West Bengal from the Australian National University. The thesis was awarded a publishing grant from the Indian Council of Social Science Research and published as The Social History of a Bengal Town, 1985.

 In 1990, Indrani married an Australian of Dutch origin with whom she lives in Brisbane. They have a son and daughter and a grandson. Her extended family now includes members from six religions and an equal number of languages who live in many countries around the world.

Since migrating to Australia in 1990, Indrani has worked in academia, government and non-government organisations. She has been a volunteer Committee Member in many community organisations which have provided a range of perspectives on Australia’s diverse communities.

Throughout this period Indrani has continued with pursuing academic and creative writing which draw on her experiences of living and working in India and Australia. For a while, Indrani was also part of a performing group called United by Pen which brought together writers and musicians from diverse backgrounds. While the group has dispersed, some of the members remain friends and they are always happy to support each other’s achievements.

After retiring from full-time work in July 2018, Indrani joined the Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Queensland and is working on contributing more to the writers’ groups (including the Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland and the Society of Women Writers of Queensland) of which she is a Committee member. She is also involved in other community activities such as assisting a women’s refuge to get support in cash and kind and promoting women’s achievements through community events and journals.

In 2015, Indrani put together an anthology of her stories, poems and articles called In My Father’s House which was launched at her 25^th wedding anniversary in Brisbane. She recently published her first novel The Rose and the Thorn in 2019. She has begun to do the research for the sequel.  

Reading in three languages (English, Bengali and Hindi), travel, theatre and cinema, trying out different cuisines and engaging with people from diverse backgrounds are Indrani’s other interests.

Trudy Graham

Like many women of her era, Trudy Graham began writing seriously in her mid-forties. Since then, she has seen many of her short stories, book reviews, articles and some ‘accidental’ poems published.

Trudy joined the SWW (in Western Australia), the FAW and the Katharine Susannah Pritchard Foundation in the late 80’s and early 90’s. She served for some years on the committee of SWWWA – as Newsletter Editor, Magazine Coordinator, and then President – as well as serving on various other committees, including Perth PEN. She was also the Acting West Australian State Literature Officer for 3 months, when the SLO, Susan Hayes, was on study leave in the USA.

In the early nineties, while undertaking a BA in English Studies with a Minor in Writing, Trudy set up a writing group (the Northern Writers Association) and lobbied to have the home of Edith Cowan recreated on the Joondalup campus of the Edith Cowan University, to be used as a writers’ centre.

The success of that venture led to the NWA changing its name to The Peter Cowan Writers Centre, which today is a thriving centre for writers in the northern suburbs of Perth. In honour of her work with the PCWC, an annual literary award is named in Trudy’s honour (along with the late Julie Lewis, fellow writer, friend of the late Peter Cowan, and a great supporter of Trudy’s work). A further honour was the Faculty of Arts Medal, which was awarded to Trudy on her graduation from Edith Cowan University in 1995.

After obtaining her BA, Trudy joined the Society of Editors and worked as an independent editor.

With three fellow writers, she also formed a small publishing company (Memories Press), learned the craft of book binding and conducted writing workshops. For a number of terms, she served on the Joondalup Cultural Advisory Committee. For her work in the field of The Arts in WA, she received a local Australia Day Award in 1996.

When she relocated to Murphys Creek, Queensland in 2000, Trudy joined the SWWQ and served on the committee as Newsletter Editor, Membership Secretary, and also President for two terms. In her local community she joined the rural fire brigade, and volunteered at a local historical cottage, serving at various times as President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the Neighbourhood Centre. She also came out of retirement for a couple of years and taught literacy and numeracy in Toowoomba.

Despite being so busy, Trudy has managed to travel – her second great love after reading and writing – and has travelled Australia widely, living in every state except for Tasmania, although she has spent some extended time there. She has also been to Noumea, NZ, USA, UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Her favourite place, after Australia, is Italy, where she was lucky enough to live and study for 3 months in 2006, and again to stay with an Italian family for a further 2 months in 2008.

Today, aged 70, Trudy is still writing, although not as much as she would like. She is a voracious reader. She says that God put her on earth to read a certain number of books and right now she’s so far behind she will never die. She continues to volunteer, mainly with U3A in Toowoomba Inc, where she is Vice-President, Membership Secretary, and Newsletter Manager. She is also a volunteer tutor with U3A, teaching computer skills, and a trainer of new tutors.

Since she joined U3A in 2009, Trudy has been learning Italian, which she can now read and write moderately well. She can understand Italian, if it’s spoken slowly, as if to a child, but her spoken Italian brings tears to the eyes of a native Italian – whether tears of laughter or despair she has yet to discover.

Next year, Trudy plans to once again ‘retire’, moving to somewhere in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. There, she will concentrate on her own writing. This is where her family roll around laughing but, she declares, this is the plan!

Di Hill

A teaching career is what Di wanted when at school but she was always writing.  In those days pen friends were popular and Di wrote to girls her own age in the UK, Asia and Australia.  She was also an enthusiastic Argonaut and had some of her stories read on the ABC and one published in the ABC Children’s’ newspaper.

But a teaching career did not happen then.  Instead, she embarked on a nursing career in her late teens and subsequently worked in hospitals in South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Later, she was a medical representative, shopping centre marketing manager, art gallery owner and more – often holding two or more positions at a time.

Di completed a degree in Adult and Vocational Teaching at Griffith University in 2002, working in the training industry.  At last, she was a teacher!  In 2008, Di embarked on a career teaching English to students at universities in China and South Korea.

In 2012 she graduated from Swinburne University with a Master of Arts (Writing), and then went on a solo drive around Australia taking five months to complete the journey.  She took thousands of photographs and visited many interesting historical destinations in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Beachmere, just north of Brisbane, became her new home, and she has lived at this seaside town since May 2012, doing much community work and fitting in some writing.

She founded the Writers of Wynnum Manly, is a member of the Queensland Writers Centre and the Society of Women Writers Qld (as well as Past President), the Caboolture Historical Society and is a member of The Society of Obituary Writers.  She is also a Qualified Instructor of the GAB (Guided Autobiography Method of Life Story Writing.)

Di is a Senior Writer for WeekendNotes.com, and writes content for a number of websites, as well as creating websites using WordPress.

Visit her website here and her blog.

Adele Moy

Adele Moy started writing as a child, regularly entering work into the children’s pages of local newspapers and sometimes being lucky enough to see her work in print. Like many other Australian kids of her generation, Adele was an avid member of  ABC radio’s Argonauts Club and sometimes had the thrill of having her work read ‘over the air’ as her parents called it.

Since maturing just a little bit, Adele has published short stories, articles, poetry and book reviews and for three years wrote a regular column for ‘Scope’ the monthly magazine of The Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland.  During a varied career, she worked in arts administration for many years.  As Queensland Government Literature Officer at Arts Queensland, she travelled the state as the resource person for Queensland writing, including the primary role of co-organising the first Queensland writers’ train which travelled from Brisbane to Charleville and return. Adele also travelled on the train as one of the featured writers, sharing the stage with writers including Thea Astley, Tom Kenneally, Tim Winton, Jeanette Turner Hospital and Nick Earls.

She was the inaugural Executive Director of the New South Wales Writers Centre and Executive Officer of the Queensland chapter of Women in Film and Television, a world wide advocacy group inaugurated in Hollywood USA for women working in the industry. She also worked for Brisbane Ethnic Music and Arts Centre.

Adele edited the bi-monthly magazine of The North Brisbane Writers and various other publications including the prize-winning book for The Pine Rivers writing competition. She was a member of the editorial board of Imago Literary Magazine which emanated from QUT.  She’s been the President of The Fellowship of Australian Writers Queensland on three separate occasions and also FAWQ secretary.  As a board member of Warana Writers Week and The Brisbane Writers Festival, Adele was instrumental in helping to formulate the programming and future direction of BWF.

Adele is currently a committee member of Society of Women Writers Queensland and the convenor  of the Brisbane City Council funded Sandcliffe Writers Festival, which in 2017 will see the fourth Sandcliffe Festival presented.  Adele has no real desire or plans to write a novel, but she really admires and applauds writers who do so. But who knows what the future will bring, perhaps when she matures just a little bit more.

Virginia Miranda

Virginia began writing in high school and was first published in the Brisbane State High School Year book, 1966.

In 1976 her story ‘The Enchanted Valley’, a story about Fraser Island in the future, was published in the QIT magazine, Unit 76.

In the 70’s and 80’s Virginia’s short stories were published in ‘Me’ magazine.

As Public Relations Officer for Beenleigh Air Sea Rescue, she wrote a weekly column in the Albert &Logan News.

Virginia is a member of Byron Writers Festival, Brisbane Writers Centre, Brisbane Writers Festival and The Society of Women Writers. She is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Fellowship of Australian Writers Qld.

In 2014 she began a 52 Week Flash Fiction Challenge on Facebook. Her first book ‘FlashFiction Volume One is a compilation of these stories. The book was recently launched at the Cleveland Lions Community Centre, to wide acclaim.

“They say the best examples of a fine Chianti are a visceral tasting experience; an intense sense of place developing with just a single sip. The same can be said of this collection of flash fiction shorts.” Review by Dimity Powell – Children’s author.

Her style is emotive and evocative, demonstrating her love for the written word.

‘For me writing is about the words, how they come together, where they take the reader. The art of good Flash Fiction is to deliver a subtle message in the least amount of words. I believe my book has achieved this.’

Virginia’s Website – www.inkblurb.com

Facebook – Virginia’s Inkblurb

Sue O’Sullivan

Sue is a photographer by profession and has worked for various newspapers to which she continues to contribute the odd article and photographs.

Her writing mainly revolves around essays, usually biographical in nature; she has a large family hence no shortage of subject matter!

Whilst living in a small country town she produced, wrote and choreographed plays and pantomimes for school children. Wherever she has lived she has been involved in amateur dramatics – nerve-wracking but stimulating!

She is currently a guide at the Queensland Art Gallery and is involved in other voluntary work.

She was educated in NSW and Victoria, and attained a B.A. (Hons) and M.A. (Lit).

Helga Parl

Writing in English, came late into Helga’s life. After working for forty five years as a draftsman with painting as hobby, it was time to do something new. She started writing and illustrating children’s stories. Then came her first and self-published novella, Brisbane, Bach and Brandenburg—Hunt for the Seventh Concerto.

After joining Fairfield Writers she contributed to their five Anthologies, with stories and cover designs.

Joining the Society of Women Writers Queensland, gave her another boost into creativity. Two more books were the result: Pixels—Short Stories, and a novel, Angela and Her Boys.

Most of her works were self-published in conjunction with Rainbow Works Pty Ltd, and launched at the Fairfield Garden Library.

 Jill Slack

Joan Turnour

Joan was born in Malta in 1931 when ‘Britannia ruled the waves’ and her father was part of the Grand Fleet.  She was evacuated to England in 1939 and spent her school years in Surrey, England.  She migrated to Australia as a $10 Pom in 1952. From the suburbs of Melbourne Joan ventured to the Great Barrier Reef as a hostess on Heron Island, and then continued on to Darwin where she met and married John (Jack) Turnour, the rice agronomist at Humpty Doo.  Together they pioneered 3000 hectares, first with horticulture and a banana plantation, into a thriving pasture seed and cattle property.  In 1970 they left the Territory and explored the Top End and the East Coast with their four children.   They settled in Conondale where Jack established a cattle property for Sydney investors which later became the permaculture village of Crystal Waters.

In 1973 Jack joined an Aid Team in Samar, a poor province in the Philippines, and for the next twenty five years continued in both The Philippines and Indonesia.   Joan put the two oldest children into boarding school and home-schooled her two youngest.  In 1983 to improve her Indonesian language she enrolled in an Associate Diploma of Arts (Asian Studies) by distance education with the Darling Downs Institute.  This involved assignments and her writing career commenced.  During her final years in Manila Joan wrote for the expatriate paper and started her autobiography.

Upon her return in 1995 Joan joined SWWQ.  In 2005 she was elected President and to mark the 30^th anniversary of the Society coordinated the anthology ‘Behind the Faces’.  SWWQ  received a grant to cover costs of the book launch with 200 guests at Lennon’s Hotel in November 2006.   Together with Corinne Soda, Joan convened the first Retreat at Bribie Island.  She put the Society online with a web page and with the help of Di Hill started the blog.  Together with Elli Housden she also arranged poetry workshops.

Joan published the first half of her autobiography in 2011.  Unfortunately, her husband suffered a stroke and because he could no longer climb stairs she was forced to sell the house. They moved to a retirement village at Noosaville.  Joan came down to meetings in 2012, taking the train from Nambour, but this became too difficult.  She joined a local book group and enjoys the annual Noosa Long Weekend; a festival of literary lunches, forums and book launches held each July.  But she maintains membership of this Society.   Joan is now at the publishing stage of the second part of her autobiography covering her expatriate years.

Joan’s husband died in July 2016 and she was greatly touched when three members attended his funeral service.   This confirmed her belief that the Society brings women together for more than writing workshops and fosters lasting friendships.

Sue Wagner

Mocco Wollert

Mocco Wollert came to Australia from Germany in 1958. A migrant, wife, grandmother and great-grandmother she has a lot to draw from, writing in English and German.

She has spent a lifetime writing poetry, publishing 8 books of poetry, many in combination with art.  She has also created a series of 10 children’s books about a cat called Miss Applebee.

Widely published in Literary magazines, newspapers and anthologies, she has also won numerous prizes in literary competitions.  Her memoir about life in Darwin was published by the Literary Society of N.T. in 2017.

Mocco, along with Marj Wilke, were instrumental in the formation of the Society of Women Writers, Queensland.

In 2017 Mocco was Vice President of the Society of Women Writers Queensland.