About This Author
Trudy Graham’s love of words and books began early. She is a voracious reader and says that God put her on earth to read a certain number of books and right now she’s so far behind she will never die.
From childhood, Trudy loved to write stories but never thought of writing seriously until she was in her mid-forties. Since then, she has seen many of her short stories, book reviews, articles and some ‘accidental’ poems published.
Trudy’s second great love (not forgetting family) is travel. She has lived in every state of Australia, except Tasmania, although she spent some extended time there on two visits. She has also travelled to Noumea, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
While living in Western Australia, Trudy became deeply involved in the writing world and served for ten years on various committees there. She was also the Acting West Australian State Literature Officer for 3 months when the SLO was on study leave in the USA.
In the early nineties, while undertaking a BA in English Studies at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Trudy established a writing group and lobbied to have the home of Edith Cowan recreated on the Joondalup campus of the Edith Cowan University, to be used as a writers’ centre.
The success of that venture led to The Peter Cowan Writers Centre, which today is a thriving centre for writers in the northern suburbs of Perth. In honour of her work, an annual literary award is named in Trudy’s honour (along with the late Julie Lewis). A further honour was the Faculty of Arts Medal, which was awarded to her on her graduation from Edith Cowan University in 1995.
Trudy returned to the East Coast of Australia in the year 2000 and settled on a small property in Murphys Creek, Queensland. She lived there for 17 years, joining a book club and running a literacy program, in between her travels.
In 2006 Trudy spent 3 months in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, researching her family history. While there, she taught English to Italian teenagers at a Summer School in Chester. She then travelled to Italy, where she stayed for 3 months. First, she attended a four-week intensive language course in Poppi and then, armed with her new language skills, found a cottage amongst olive trees and grape vines in Montefugoni, and pretended she was a local for a month. For the last of her three months in Italy, Trudy took an apartment in Florence and soaked up the art, the culture, the language and the food.
Back in Australia, Trudy joined the University of the Third Age in Toowoomba and continued her studies of the Italian language. She can now read and write Italian moderately well but her pronunciation brings tears to the eyes of a native Italian – whether tears of laughter or despair she has yet to discover.
Always one to give back to a community, Trudy became a volunteer tutor for U3A in Toowoomba, teaching Computer Skills and Safety. She also took on the role of Vice-President, Membership Secretary, and Newsletter Manager for five years.
In between her commitments with U3A, her local community in Murphys Creek (where she volunteered at a Cottage Museum and was a support worker for the Rural Fire Brigade), Trudy kept up her travels, both in and out of Australia. Another long stay in Italy in 2008 – this time with friends in Bologna – increased her love of that country, its people, culture and food.
Now settled in a lovely home nestled in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, Trudy is still writing, although not as much as she would like. She has vowed not to join or volunteer to work for any more groups, but to concentrate on her own writing. This is where her family roll around laughing but, she declares, this is the plan!