Helen Hagemann

The Patrick White Award is an annual literary prize established by Patrick White. White used his 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature award to establish a trust for this prize.                                                   Patrick White (28 May 1912 – 30 September 1990) was an Australian author who is widely regarded as one of the most important English-language novelists of the 20th century. From…

On Friday, I watched the film The Odyssey, a Christopher Nolan masterpiece. One of the reasons I wanted to see the movie was to partly enjoy this blockbuster and also to understand Homer’s long epic poem which I supposedly needed to study at University. Of course, I dropped the study unit and chose something a lot easier. Nevertheless, I have always wondered about this Greek myth/story and I have…

⚡️FLASH! ⚡️WIP Collection Out Soon on AMAZON KINDLE⚡️ Cricket Ensemble Mid-summer and several house crickets are practisingtheir music in the ceiling. They are tweaking the samehigh-pitched, rhythmic sound that happens every hourafter 7 pm. Night must switch them on when day departs. They will not stop their incessant noise and now anothertroupe is listening to the greats like Menuhin,…

Elizabeth Jolley, 1923-2007 Elizabeth Jolley was born in a coal-mining town in the English midlands. She came to understand loneliness and isolation at an early age from her Viennese mother, the daughter of an Austrian general during World War I, who was exiled from her home and family after marrying Jolley’s English father. Jolley’s mother missed the Viennese countryside and often spoke…

Published in August on Spring Poetry Wall, Joondalup Library – Listen to poem Through a Litany of Filtered Light When it comes to naturethere is no half measure,no illusion or suggestion.You follow kangaroos, ducks,bobtails, the weed choke on deadwood.You enter fragility, old ghost trails,settler’s huts, cold granite– that other world –through a litany of filtered light. © Nature sways you to…

Cate Kennedy is an Australian author based in Victoria. She graduated from University of Canberra and has also taught at several colleges, including The University of Melbourne. She is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. It was also shortlisted for The Age fiction prize 2010 and the ASA…

Suggested Reading & Exercises  ©                                                                     Josephine Rowe was born in 1984. She lives in St. Kilda and is the author of East of Here, Close to Water, Asynchrony and How a Moth Becomes a Boat. Rowe – who earlier self-published her collections East of Here, Close to Water;etc–. has now had her last book How a Moth Becomes a Boat taken up by…

COPYRIGHT (c) 2026: Image by courtesy of the Peter Cowan Writers Centre

New Series Featuring Australian Authors and Their Short Fiction © Robert Drewe was born in Melbourne, but moved with his family to Perth, at the age of six. He was educated at Hale School, later working as a junior reporter for The West Australian. He moved to Melbourne in his twenties working for The Age and went on to be literary editor at The Australian before turning to fiction. His first…

While I wait for my five minutes of fame on the Rochford Street Review’s Bloomsday Edition, I thought I would share my other publication of a scifaiku poem that will be published in the Peter Cowan Writers Centre’s Zine #3, The Tides we Change These are the other scifaiku submitted that failed.. Two RobotsSqueak arms and legsNo knee replacements –o- Terracotta warriorsLine ten abreastNeed oil…