The Finalists
AUDREY POOR
Audrey uses her writing as a tool to make herself laugh. If she makes others laugh along the way, it’s a bonus.
She is currently completing a Bachelor of Arts degree at The University of Notre Dame, studying Theatre and Film. She has been an entertainer all her life. Whether that be to entertain herself, or her big family, it was all she wanted to do.
She found her love for writing whilst doing Drama in high school and has never looked back. Audrey likes to write about the little absurdities in life and to remind others to not take life too seriously.
CAROLYN FORTE
Carolyn has lived in Margaret River, in the South-West of Australia since the early 1990s, arriving from the UK with four children, a husband, a dog and a horse called Rosie. She’s been a cave guide, a restaurateur, a wholefood bakehouse owner, and now runs a holiday accommodation business.
Her writing career has been varied and sporadic, from writing cinema reviews for the Sussex University student magazine, to having anecdotes on life as a new Australian published in the UK’s Sunday Telegraph, to writing and performing pieces for theatre. She is a keen actor and is a life member of the Margaret River Theatre Group. Life in the Middle Ages, a monologue about navigating menopause and life with teenage daughters, was performed on ABC radio but after being considered too racy for mainstream radio, was produced as a very early podcast.
Life in its ever-changing glory is all the inspiration Carolyn needs for storytelling. Having daughters with wanderlust provides her with plenty of material, as she hears about them being escorted by gun-wielding bodyguards in Caracas, or being caught up in a coup and herded off the streets at gunpoint in Istanbul, or huddling overnight on an open hill top during the Lombok earthquakes anticipating a tsunami. And of course, That Novel is still waiting to be finished, sitting in a folder called The Bottom Drawer.
DONNA HUGHES
Donna Hughes is a Fremantle based playwright who has been working in education for over twenty years.
She is motivated to craft contemporary stories that examine the truth about our world and the stuff that makes us human. Her plays include Treading Water (2015), Disconnected (2017) and Ground Swell (2020).
Donna’s work was selected for development by Stages WA and Playwriting Australia. Disconnected was published by Australian Plays (2019) and Treading Water was long listed for the Monte Miller Award (2020).
SULLIVAN RHODES
Sullivan Rhodes has written poetry, short stories, a novel which stars the animals of the Harvey Estuary (currently out for tender) but never, ever a play script…until now.
He has even taught creative writing to high school students (who often wrote scripts which he had to assess…he did confess a complete absence of knowledge) and he is a fan of fringe festivals, wherever they may be. But, he is a terrible thespian who cannot even learn his lines, so it has taken him many decades to put quivering quill to parchment.
He was tempted out of hiding by the challenge of writing comedy, which can be as gritty and black as you like, thoroughly silly, or sometimes quite beautiful. He enjoyed it so much that he may have to do it again (as the actor said to the bishop).
TED WITHAM
Ted has written stories for as long as he can remember. His interest in drama goes back to high school and university, where he acted in amateur productions including the title roles in Molière’s The Imaginary Invalid and Ionesco’s The King is Dying.
His poetry, translations, short stories and hymns have been published in Quadrant, Studio: a journal of Christian writing, Indigo, The Adelaide Literary Review and other journals in Australia, the US and the UK. His stories and poems have been shortlisted and commended in several competitions, including the Stuart Hadow Short Story Award 2019 and the Australian Catholic University’s Poetry Prize in 2017. He was the judge of the Blake in the Blackwood Poetry Competition from 2017– 2019. He has self-published several titles including Sonnets for Sundays (2018), and collections of children’s stories, including The Secret of Mount Toolbrunup.
Ted has been meeting with a small group of Busselton writers each month to share work and to encourage each other. Hopefully these meetings will re-convene as the Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. He lives in Busselton with Rae, his wife of 41 years, and Lottie, their energetic Jack Russell terrier.
THERESE EDMONDS
Therese is a teller of fanciful tales who has had her short stories and monologues published in Australia and online in the UK.
She has won the Maj Monologues Judge’s Prize as well as twice winning their People’s Choice Award, is counted among Wendy Harmer’s Australia’s Funny Women, she’s had one of her short film scripts screened at the prestigious Dungog Film Festival, won the inaugural Shorelines Writing for Performance Festival, her draft screenplay was shortlisted for ScreenWest’s Bill Warnock Award, and her first one-act play, Sleeping Dogs, was shortlisted in the Noosa (now the National) One-Act Play Competition.
She’s also written and performed stand-up comedy and comedy revue as well as a sea lion panto while working at Atlantis Marine Park.
Therese is an active member of Edge Performance Writers Collective who enjoys collaborating on creating events that develop opportunities for WA writers to have their work performed and recognised. In her day job she is a writer and editor for business and private clients.