About Bunbury Writers Group
Founded initially in 2018, the Bunbury Writers Group was incorporated as a Not For Profit organisation in 2019. Based in the South West Australian port town of Bunbury, it is a collaboration of over two dozen amateur, keen-amateur, semi-professional and professional writers, who meet in a local licensed cafe, Caf-fez. This charming and holistically-with-the-Muses spot inspires them to share and swap stories, poems, plays and ideas. The licensed status of the place also helps immeasurably.
They aim to inspire writers of all abilities and backgrounds to share in the passion of words and the magic of stories, in whatever form they are told. If you would like to learn more about the group, follow them on Facebook or Instagram. They are always very keen to welcome drop-in visits to their meetings. Email them for details at bunburywritersgroup@gmail.com.
Scroll down to read more about each of the featured authors within the Group’s anthologies.
About the Authors
Ben Mason
Ben founded the Bunbury Writers Group and hosts quarterly spoken word nights. His short fiction has been performed, published and awarded, featuring in Brain drip, KSP writing comp, and Lit Live Perth.
Home Invasion – his collection of short fiction – was long-listed for the 2019 Fogarty Award, for the best-unpublished manuscript for a West Australian writer under 35.
He has won spoken word competitions and finished 3rd in the 2019 WA leg of the Australian Poetry Slam State Final. In 2020 he will be a writer in residence at Mattie Furphie House for the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA.
He quit teaching at the end of 2017 to follow his dream of becoming a writer. It doesn’t pay the bills, but it makes him damn happy.
Apikara
Apikara is an intuitive writer, born of blood in New Zealand and other lands.
Her love of words and creative expression lead her to join the Bunbury Writers Group, where she says, ‘She’s a fledgling in the nest of passionate orators in print.’
Apikara lives on Noongar Boodgar in the Southwest of Australia.
Dan Depiazzi
Dan Depiazzi was born in Bunbury, grew up on a Dardanup dairy farm as the youngest of six children and then proceeded to study, work, travel and play for the following 15 years. Along the way he met an English backpacker, they married, settled in Boyanup and started a family.
His first steps in the direction of writing creatively were through spoken word poetry in Melbourne around the year 2000. That phase came and went, with jottings here and there, but his passion for writing has recently been rekindled, courtesy of the Bunbury Writers Group.
Dan won first place at the Shorelines Writing for Performance Festival of 2019 and recently performed in the WA Poetry Slam Heats. He’s looking forward to introducing himself as a writer at parties, now he’s figured out that he is one!
David Rawet
David Rawet was born in Melbourne, Australia. He finished school and qualified as a forester before working in eastern, western and finally central Victoria. In 1988 he moved to Bunbury in Western Australia, where he still lives. A career in bushfire management has recently been wound back, allowing him to devote more time to creative pursuits. His longstanding love of song writing and performing is now bookended with writing play scripts and fiction.
David was a finalist in the 2019 South-West Shorts monologue/duologue competition and had two pieces shortlisted in the 2019 Shore Lines writing for performance competition.
His plan is to travel the world doing research for novels and being able to claim the expenses against royalty payments. We all have dreams …
Gogo Buzz
Gogo Buzz was born in a parking lot in the picturesque university town of Stellenbosch in the fairest Cape, South Africa. She is a retired schoolteacher and legal advisor and now makes her home in Western Australia’s South West in Bunbury also known as the City of Three Waters.
Her real-life experiences especially those in unexpected places influence her writing. Despite a fulfilling career, all she ever wanted to do was to become a writer. She says that joining the Bunbury Writers Group has been the kickstart to her post working life career.
An intrepid traveller, compulsive reader, adventure sports lover with green thumbs and ten grandchildren; she blogs about her travels; writes stories for her grandchildren and in the rest of her writing, nurturing our planet is close to her heart. Gogo is also in avid pursuit of the elusive novel she started writing at the age of thirteen.
Ian Andrew
Ian Andrew’s first crime novel, Face Value, won the international Publishers Weekly BookLife Prize for Fiction in 2017. Since then he has continued to add to that series, is also a successful ghost writer and has founded the Book Reality Experience, a publishing assistance service that helps writers become independent authors.
Originally from Northern Ireland, he now lives in Western Australia, where he relocated to after serving in the UK’s Royal Air Force as an Intelligence Officer.
Jackie Coffin
Jackie Coffin is a queer writer, with a fondness for alliteration and Humphrey Bogart.
She has Master of Applied Linguistics and lives in the desert, where she works with first languages, walks her dog, argues with two teenagers, and uses her profession as an excuse to spend all her spare money on books.
Jackie has always had an affinity with language. She decided to be a writer at a young age and began writing stories in primary school. She wrote stories in high school and as an adult, writes research papers and noir, dabbles in poetry, haiku and even zines. If she wasn’t a writer, she’d be a journalist, or a research assistant, or a librarian. Anywhere she could write things and be surrounded by books.
K Dee
K. Dee wrote her first novel while in a caravan, on the side of mountain, during a Canadian winter. It was terrible, the book – not the Canadian winter. She has since written and directed a monologue and two one act plays.
The subject matter ranged from a decapitated teddy-bear and a time traveling toilet to a paranoid bicycle tourist. Currently, she is writing a contemporary fantasy novel involving mermaids, assassinations and beer.
Laura Ferretti
If you had of been looking for Laura Ferretti when she was a teenager, the beach would have been your first stop.
Born in Harvey, Western Australia, her family moved to Bunbury when she was two years old. Apart from a brief stint in Perth, Laura has resided in Bunbury ever since. As an over thinker with a hyperactive imagination the foundation for creative writing was set, and at thirteen she won an Australia Post Schools Letter Writing Competition on futuristic communication. After graduating high school writing was put on pause as life steered her down a different pathway, chasing that elusive career and raising a family.
It was years later during a period of recovery from a dance with death, (thank goodness she took Salsa lessons), Laura realised what was missing from her life and started writing again.
Joining the Bunbury Writers Group and being involved with its talented and enthusiastic members she says, has given her the inspiration to finish fine tuning her novel.
Lee Harsen
Lee Harsen is a fifth generation Bunbarian, who has been daydreaming like Anne Shirley and writing fiction and poems from a young age.
She is influenced by the stories she hears of women in the urban landscape, their dynamics with the ordinary, their hidden stories and their struggles. She takes inspiration from the landscape around her and finds the South West of Western Australia particularly suited to her gothic mind.
Joining the Bunbury Writers Group meant finding a group of diverse writers and likeminded people and stepping out of her imagination and into the reality of ‘doing’. She believes that sharing her writing finally give legitimacy to a passion that has remained on the backburner for too long.
Her pieces have been performed in Bunbury’s ‘Shorelines- Writing for Performance Festival’.
She also struggles with writing to a specific word limit and therefore this bio wi—
‘The trouble with being a conscious dreamer is you always have one foot in the real world and one foot in the imaginary.’
Louise Tarrier
Louise Tarrier is from Dorset in the UK but is currently living in the South West of Western Australia. She works for a women’s environmental charity and has previously published a meditation book The Way of the Sea Priestess – an inner path and also a collection of poetry, Heart Song.
In her own words, ‘Writing has been my love since I could put pencil to paper. What makes a good story fascinates me and I think a love of writing generally goes hand in hand with a love of reading. That’s one of the reasons why belonging to a writing group is such a joy. Writing is often seen as a solitary pursuit, but I have discovered that belonging to a group has enabled my writing to develop in ways that just wouldn’t have happened on my own. The pieces I am offering in the anthology are all about change and how my characters react and deal with the changes that are happening in their lives. I think that this speaks to my own process as a writer and how by becoming part of a group my writing has developed in new and unexpected ways.’
You can find out more about Louise at www.creativeprayers.com
Mark Townsend
Mark Townsend was born in South London but lived in West Sussex, England for most of his life before emigrating to the South West of Australia with his family in 2006. He said from an early age that he would move to Australia one day and win big on the lottery. He is still waiting for the latter.
Mark has always had a love of all things macabre. From the old black and white monster films, to the modern-day horrors. He takes his inspirations from writers such as Stephen King and James Herbert. He says that he likes to inject some comedy in his dark tales.
The Bunbury Writing group, Mark says, has been the creative inspiration that was missing in his life. There is nothing better than being inspired by inspirational people.
Mark was shortlisted in the 2018 KSP Writers Centre Ghost Story competition.
‘Imagination is the most important thing when writing fiction. If you have a story in your head, then get it out no matter how raw it is. Then ask a clever friend to edit it for you!’
Nina Peck
Nina Peck grew up on the South Coast of England in the seaside town of Weymouth before taking a chance on a working holiday in Australia in 2012. Girl-meets-Boy story ensued, and Nina is now a fully-fledged Aussie who has maintained her childhood dream of writing books.
A graduate in English Literature and Creative Writing, Nina does have a day job, but her passion for the last couple of years has been a creative force known as The Bunbury Writers Group and the opportunities it has offered.
Nina is a big fan of correcting her husband’s grammar and can usually be found in any establishment where wine is served, and if said establishment also contains books, then even better.
Stephanie Fitz-Henry
Stephanie started speaking, reading and telling stories at a very young age and has never stopped!
Born in Perth and raised in Brisbane in the suburb of Tingalpa –the place of fat kangaroo, she is inspired by her childhood experiences, her love of music and her deep connection to nature and animals. She likes to explore social issues in her work.
Stephanie considers herself a Storyteller and enjoys creative self-expression through different art forms, such as live performance, dance, poetry and writing. She was even a tree for a day! Joining the Bunbury Writers Group in 2018, she collaborates with many artists on different creative projects. With degrees in Performing Arts, Physical Theatre, and English and Creative Writing, she has received a number of awards for her writing and has had her work performed at various festivals. Stephanie’s dream is to live, love and write in Paris!
Suzanne M. Faed
Suzi Faed was born and raised in Bunbury, Western Australia. Apart from a five-year stint in Perth, she chose to settle in Bunbury, tied there by her love of family and her need to be near the water and a relaxed lifestyle. Suzi is a qualified Early Childhood teacher, wife and a mother to an energetic and book-loving little girl.
The written word is how Suzi likes to be heard. She aspires to inspire those who read her work. From a young age, she was drawn to writing. As she grew and life took her on different pursuits, her passion for writing always remained.
Suzi has independently published her late father’s biography, Fighting Spirit, and is also the author of her debut picture book, My Daddy is Different, published by Empowering Resources.
Suzi has a special talent (some would say more an obsession) of buying too many books at writers’ festivals and author talks, then stressing that there is just not enough time to read the enormous stack accumulating on her bookshelf.
For more information on Suzi, go to www.suzifaed.com and follow her on social media at www.facebook.com/suzifaedauthor/
Rob Manning
Rob Manning grew up in Scarborough, a beach side suburb in Perth Western Australia. He was interested in writing from an early age. He still has his Year 6 writing folio which features a series of stories about a character called Naughty Nod. Rediscovering his love of writing at university, he has been writing short stories and poetry ever since. He and his wife took time out from their teaching jobs and sailed around Australia from 2000-2004. On their return they self-published a gripping account of their adventures. The book is called Tell Tales: The adventures of sailing vessel Norlee.
Rob is now retired and living in the beautiful Ferguson Valley, 20 minutes out of Bunbury.
Andrea Peebles
Andrea Peebles, BHSc (OT), Grad Cert (Health) is a Transformational Life Coach, Detox Specialist, Writer, Speaker and Adventurer.
Fuelled by her father’s death in 2009 Andrea left New Zealand to travel the world on a mission of adventure, challenge and self-discovery. She believes in the power of setting big goals and pushing oneself outside their comfort zone. Racing as a semi-professional throughout Australasia she competed in the World Championships in mountain biking, adventure and multi-sport racing. She’s both featured in and written for magazines, been on TV, mediated alongside Buddhist Nuns in Thailand and transformed her health through fasting and detoxing.
Andrea loves writing about her experiences and takes people on a journey to bring to life the vast physical, emotional, cultural and spiritual richness of the world and the challenges she finds herself in – cue never a dull moment.
Tiffany Leeder
Tiffany Leeder has lived most of her life in Bunbury and works locally as an English teacher. She grew up with the characters she befriended in books and became an avid storyteller at a young age. As a teenage mother, Tiffany wrote about her experience in a handbook for young Mums-to-be, titled Expecting the Unexpected. Since then, she has written short stories, poems, fanfiction, and is now working on an LGBT contemporary novel.
Tiffany lives with her husband and their three children, as well as their dog, Padfoot, and their cats, Moony and Tonks. She may also have a slight obsession with the fantastic world of Harry Potter.