Community
9 May, 2025
Thirty years of storytelling and fun
A SMALL writer’s group in Camperdown is continuing strong after over 30 years of writers coming together to share their love of writing and storytelling.
The Corangamite Writers’ Group originally began as a smaller group within the Corangamite Arts Incorporated group, which ran a number of writing workshops that proved popular in the 1990s.
Current member Gail Watson has been a member since 1996, and said the group was born from writing groups who met with a retired high school teacher at least once a month.
“When I came here, I tried to find out whether there were any writings groups I could join, so I went along to that group,” she said.
“We would meet around once a month, and gradually we started meeting once a fortnight, which is what continues now.
“The writing group grew out of workshops – workshops were quite a big thing, and people came from all over. The Killara Centre would be full.
“Josie Black was very good at organizing guest writers, and they were really good writers – Arnold Zable was one of the first I went to, and it was a fantastic workshop.
“Then there was Bev(erly) Roberts, who worked at the Writer’s Centre in Melbourne (Writers Victoria) – she did a workshop too.”
Workshops were also led by ‘Forgotten Dreams’ author Doris Leadbetter, poet and author of ‘One Day She Catches Fire’ Kristin Henry, Panmure artist Glenda Hirth, author of poetry collection ‘Coming Up for Light’ Aileen Kelly, Warrnambool poet Vivienne Stanley, poet Kevin Brophy, and ‘Long Afternoon of the World’ author Graeme Kinross-Smith.
The session with Mr Kinross-Smith resulted in the publication of the group’s first collection ‘Tales of Corangamite’ in 2001, six years before Corangamite Writers became an official group.
Past members of the group included Josie Black OAM, Jill Deane, Dawn (Lee) Driscoll, Alma MacDonald, Virginia (Bardie) Mercer, June Porter, Kingsley Tregea, William Claude (King) Everett, Patricia Howley, Harold Lamb, Margaret Loving and Norma D. Wynd, alongside Mrs Watson who is still a member today.
Mrs Watson said there were a number of activities the group used to do during their monthly meetings in the Corner Room at the Theatre Royal.
“We’d go out and meet in pubs and we did quite a few poetry in the pubs and bush poetry because that’s what the people here were into,” she said.
“That was fair enough – you just wrote what you wanted to write.
“We would go up to Elephant Bridge Hotel and out of that came music afternoons up there – they’d have Celtic and Irish music as well.
“We also organised readings of our writing in the Anglican Church, and they were terrific. People came from all sorts of backgrounds.
“We did things like the Bloomsday luncheons and afternoons, and they were fantastic – Peter Daffy and his sister sang Irish songs, so we had music involved as well.
“We had one young member who was a rap poet, so he read some James Joyce and then some rap poetry, which is akin to some of the writings Joyce did.”
Today, the group meets on the first and third Saturdays of each month at the Camperdown and District Community House at 6 Gunner Street from 1.30-4pm.
The 11 current members participate in a number of writing activities to stretch their minds, which can then be shared if the writer chooses to do so.
Mrs Watson said she enjoys being able to spend time with people who also see writing as something important to them.
“The best friends I’ve ever had have been writers,” she said.
“In the writing group, you form really close relationships because you write about things that have got to be about your life – you can imagine other people’s lives, but your own life is also grist for the mill.
“Writing has always been significant in the area – even if it wasn’t always every weekend, there was always a group for people who wanted to write and were really enthusiastic about it.
“I hope the writing group continues, and I hope the writing group members start sending their writing out to be published.
“It’s terrifying, but then it’s exhilarating when you get something back that says it will be published.”
Read More: Camperdown