We’re thrilled to unveil our four incredible Treasured Author selections in Writing WA’s 2025 Literary Coasters initiative, thanks to Magabala Books, KSP Writers’ Centre and Peter Cowan Writers Centre.
✨ Alf Taylor – An extract from ‘Stockmen’, a powerful poem from Cartwarra or what? (Magabala Books, 2022).
Alf spent his childhood growing up in New Norcia Mission, WA, and upon leaving he worked around Perth and Geraldton as a seasonal farm worker, before he joined the Armed Forces. After a marriage, seven children and a divorce, Alf found his voice as a writer and poet. Alf’s father’s name was Rosendo Taylor and he married his Mother Queenie Harris who came from the Fraser Ranges. Her Mother belonged to the Ngadu people from the Norseman area.
✨ Katharine Susannah Prichard – The beautiful poem ‘Night in the Garden’, from The Earth Lover and Other Verses (Sunnybrook Press, 1932), illustrated by Eileen McGrath.
Katharine was a pacifist and lover of nature as well as an accomplished author who published 13 novels, 4 collections of short stories as well as plays, essays, articles, and poetry. She was the first Australian novelist to gain international recognition for her 1915 novel, The Pioneers, which won a prestigious literature prize, and was a Nobel Prize for Literature nominee in 1951.
✨ Peter Cowan – A glimpse into ‘The Unploughed Land’, his landmark short story from The Unploughed Land: Stories (Angus & Robertson, 1958).
Peter was a former farm labourer-turned-teacher and prolific author and editor of numerous anthologies. He was accomplished as a fiction author but also wrote in the genres of biography, essays and literary criticism. In 1992 he was honoured with the Patrick White Award for an Australian Writer of Great Distinction, was named one of WA’s Living Treasures in 1999, and was awarded a Centenary Medal in 2001 for service to literature through writing.
✨ Daisy Utemorrah – A treasured excerpt from Do Not Go Around the Edges (Magabala Books, 1991), her beloved children’s book illustrated by Pat Torres.
Daisy was an elder of the Wunambal people from the Mitchell Plateau area in the far north Kimberley. She was born in 1922 at Kunmunya Mission and her family background gave her fluency in three Aboriginal languages. Daisy has been recognised for her work as a poet and a teacher. Her first book, Do Not Go Around the Edges, won the Australian Multicultural Children’s Book Award in 1992 and was also shortlisted for the Children’s Book of the Year for Younger Readers.
The Literary Coasters will be printed and distributed from March 2025 as part of Writing WA’s 2025 project Changing the Conversation: Stories in All Spaces, generously funded by the State of Western Australia through Department of Local Government, Culture and Sports. This project is designed to build new bridges between writing and other creative fields, offering a series of immersive, often experimental experiences designed to reshape how literature is perceived across the community.
Announcement of selections in the Living Authors category is just around the corner…
Stay tuned for more details on how to get your hands on these special editions!