Pat Baird, most ancient member of Ibis, is interested in women's role in history and telling their story.

After moving to Phillip Island in 1989, she initiated the first creative writing group through Phillip Island Community House. Pat joined Ibis Writers in about 1992 after having completed a 50,000 word contribution to her family history: 'Dear Aunt Emma'. Following its publication, she researched and wrote a novel based on the life of her great grandmother, in the Victorian gold fields - An Unlettered Girl (2000). This book went into a second print run and still sells steadily through Sovereign Hill and the Gold Museum at Ballarat

Pat also maintains an interest in historic Churchill Island, where she works as a volunteer guide.  She was commissioned to write A Visitors’ Guide to Churchill Island  in 2005 and subsequently published Churchill Island -  History and Her Story  in 2007.

 

 

Jenny Broomhall is a poet and children's writer who has had poems published in anthologies, newsletters and magazines. She  has a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing.  Jenny especially loves performing her poetry and would love to become better at it.  She is yet to be a published children's writer - though not through lack of trying.  She has dozens of manuscripts that have yet to be seen by the public and also writes the 'odd' play. 

Jenny enjoys being part of Ibis Writers: 'They inspire me and believe in me.  Thank goodness some one does!'

 

 

 

Ann Fogarty was already a nurse and a mother when, in her mid-20s she attended night school to repeat - and pass - her secondary English exam. In her 30s, whilst attending art school, she wrote her first poem.

Ann joined Ibis Writers after moving to Gippsland and started to write stories about the storytellers and yarn spinners she grew up with. She also met many 'strange and wondrous' people during her time as a nurse - a profession which she loved.

Ann's work is featured in both Ibis anthologies. She also published an essay in Prime Focus (1998), the professional journal for Australian primary school leaders.

 

 

Christine Grayden is a carer and casual relief teacher who enjoys writing short stories.  Her first book, An Island Worth Conserving: A History of the Phillip Island Conservation Society, 1968-2008, recently won  first prize, in the category Best Collaborative/Community Work in the 2009 Victorian Community History Awards.  The book reflects Christine’s interest in both the local environment and Phillip Island’s history. 

Apart from being active in the Conservation Society, Christine is also a member of the Historical Society, Friends of Phillip Island Library and Friends of Churchill Island amongst others. She has contributed stories, newspaper articles and historical material to several local publications and has given many talks on history and conservation matters.  

Recent publications include: ‘Dynamite Division Game’ in Prime Number, Vol 21, No. 3, September 2006 and ‘Going to the Nobbies’ in Celebrating our Sporting Past; 10 stories inspired by images from Bass Coast’s Sporting and Leisure history, Bass Coast Shire Council, 2006. 

Christine also contributed to both Ibis anthologies and co-edited one.

 

 

 

Hilary Heggie, BA (Sociology & Philosophy) has an office administration background, apart from a five year stint at glass etching from 1998 to 2003.

She has written some short stories and poems and has kept a diary for the past twenty years.  In 2007, an account of her journal writing experiences was included in Stephanie Dowrick’s Creative Journal Writing. 

Hilary decided 2008 was going to be the year she commenced her novel and is taking part in Andrea Goldsmith’s 'Year of the Novel' at the Victorian Writers’ Centre.  In 2009, she plans to return to her Diploma of Professional Writing & Editing studies at CAE and continue her novel.

 

 

 

 

Carolyn Landon is author of Cups with No Handles; memoir of a grassroots activist (Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne 2008), a biography of Bette Boyanton, whom Joan Kirner calls “one of the warriors”. Carolyn co-authored with Daryl Tonkin her best known book, Jackson's Track, Memoir of a Dreamtime Place (Penguin 1999).  Since then she completed a Masters Degree with the School of Historical Studies at Monash in Biography and Life Writing in order to solidify her skills as an oral historian. The result is her book, Jackson’s Track Revisited (Monash University ePress 2006), an examination of differing viewpoints of one story of Aboriginal assimilation using oral testimony and archival records. She is currently working on the biography of Eileen Harrison, Aboriginal     artist from Gippsland. 

Jackson's Track has won the Victorian Community History Award 2000, Human Rights Award 2000 from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and it was short listed for both the New South Wales and Queensland Premier's Prizes in 2000. It tells the story of Daryl Tonkin, his aboriginal wife, Euphie, and their family. It is a story of prejudice, compassion and strength of character.

Cups with No Handles is in bookstores now.

Jackson's Track Revisited is available online at: http://publications.epress.monash.edu.au 

  

Barbara Orlowska-Westwood was born in Poland and arrived in Australia in 1979. She worked as a medical doctor in both countries. Now retired, Barbara enjoys writing poetry and prose. Her writing has won a number of awards and commendations and has been published in literary journals and anthologies in Australia, Poland and America. Barbara’s other interests include   painting, politics and gardening. 

 

 

 

Sylvia Owers began writing in 1997 after moving to Phillip Island.  Following a writing course with Christine Balint, Sylvia entered and was one of the five winners of the Varuna/HarperCollins Manuscript Development Award 2003, with a tale of a young woman growing up in pre-Victorian London.  She contributed a short story to  the Ibis anthology: A Skein of Ibis; a poem, Freestyle and a short story, The Shoe Maker's Son to Australian Multicultural Book Review (Clarissa Stein, ed.). 

Sylvia has taught Creative Writing at Phillip Island U3A, Phillip Island Community & Learning Centre and Berwick TAFE.

 

 

 

 

Marian Quigley, PhD (English), BA (Literature & Politics), HDTS (Art & Craft) is an artist and writer.  A founding member of Ibis Writers and a contributing co-editor of both Ibis anthologies, she has taught fiction writing at Philliip Island and Bass Community Houses and at Monash University. Marian is currently focusing on painting and held her first solo exhibition in 2011.

 

A former Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at Monash University, Marian has also been an animation curator for australianscreen online and a member of the Advisory Board for Screen Worlds: The Story of Film, Television and Digital Culture, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne. 

Her recent publications include: ICT Ethics and Security in the 21^st Century: New Developments and Applications, IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA, (2011); ‘Glocalisation vs Globalisation: the work of Nick Park and Peter Lord’ in Furniss, M. (ed.) Animation: Art and Industry, John Libbey, USA (2009); ‘A Future Victorian Adventure: Anthony Lucas’ The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Anthony Morello’, Screen Education, Australian Teachers of Media, St Kilda, no. 53, 2009; 'Computers in Society' in McDermid, D. (ed), Ethics in ICT An Australian Perspective (Pearson Education Australia, 2008).  Marian was editor of Encyclopedia of Information Ethics and Security (IGI Global, Hershey, PA, USA, 2007).  Her book, Women Do Animate: Interviews with 10 Australian Women Animators was published by Insight Publications, Mentone in 2005.

Marian also writes the occasional poem.  She is Secretary of the Artists Society of Phillip Island and a member of the Melbourne Blues Appreciation Society.

Her website: https://sites-google.com/site/marianquig

 

 

 

Petrea Savige is a retired secondary teacher. Her main writing interest is poetry. In 1983, Melbourne Small Press NOSUKUMO published her poetry collection Return The Garden. The manuscripts Waiting for Angels (1990-1995) and Mother of the Dog (2007) continue similar ideas - looking for/creating the female story. Sections of both have been published by Poetrix, Inskshed, The New Zealand Poetry Society, Poetica Christi press and The Women-Church Journal. Waiting for Angels is the story of Eve told by her mother. The opening section, ‘Mother and Child’ has been used as part of a Liturgy.

Petrea’s work also features in both Ibis anthologies.

 

 

Heather Murray Tobias 

A painter poet, Heather completed BA majors in Literary Processes and History of Art and Architecture at Deakin University. Her poems and short stories have been published in DLS publications for two decades, also in the anthologies of Ibis Writers, WWW and Bass Coast Council and in journals, including Poetrix and Tamba. She participates in readings in Melbourne, Geelong and SW Gippsland and occasionally contributes articles to the local newspapers of Bass Coast and South Gippsland.

As representative for Ibis Writers on the Artists' Society of Phillip Island committee, 2005-9, she organized workshops and was concept coordinator of the writing festival in Cowes, PI, April 2007, establishing Wandering Wordsmiths, a gathering of poets in SW Gippsland 2007/8.

Her short story 'Escaping Good Friday' is included in Wombat Books publication, The Sound of Silence:journeys through miscarriage (2011). 

Her debut book of poetry A Feather in My Hair was launched at San Remo in June 2011 and in Melbourne in October, hosted by Birds Australia. The poems are reflections on Heather’s encounters with the natural environment, especially in South West Gippsland.  

 She is working with an editor on another manuscript, The Glass Staircase, which is nearing completion.

Her major work is an unpublished monograph on the life and work of artist, Frederick Spencer Coventry.   

 

Joan Woods tries to bridge the gap between heritage Australian poets who excited a nationalism based on the outback, to the present suburban community where acceptance of the individual is still moderated by mores that lie behind our lives.  

Joan was the production manager for both Ibis anthologies which also feature her work. She published a collection of her poetry entitled Soul Talk in 2007 and a publication on the State Mine's Hotel, Wonthaggi in the same year.  A major work, The First Twenty-One Years of the Western Australian Ballet Company is nearing completion.