Dr. Terry Whitebeach is an esteemed Australian young adult novelist, biographer and historian, poet, creative writing mentor, community developer, and social activist from Tasmania. She will be the UPEI Writer in Residence this fall semester. Her residency is sponsored by the UPEI Dean of Arts, the Institute of Island Studies, and UPEI’s English Department.

Dr. Whitebeach will lead a creative writing workshop on Saturday, October 5, from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm, at UPEI. 

In 2017, Dr. Whitebeach received the Tasmanian Human Rights Award for “her writing, teaching, facilitation and collaborative work with other writers.” Among her recent contributions are Voices of Strength, an anthology of Indigenous women’s writing; oral histories of migrant women for a Tasmanian Museum exhibition; Steps and Stories, an anthology of accounts by adult literacy students; and When I Was a Boy in Sudan and When I Was a Girl in Sudan, bilingual picture books for Sudanese refugee children.

Her publications range from All the Shamans Work in Safeway, a poetry collection for young adults, and The Versatile Man: The Life and Times of Don Ross Kaytetye Stockman (co-authored with Alexander Donald Pwerle Ross), a life history of an Aboriginal stockman, to radio plays Antarctic Journey and Mill Ends, about women textile workers, and young adult novels Watersky and Bantam.

Her workshop at UPEI is called Creating a Little Book of Dreams and will be a “cheerful, interactive workshop on the poetics, grammar, and materiality of dreams—suitable for both prose writers and poets.” Participants will explore the value and use of “dream, reverie, and vision” for their writing, and will draft short fiction, poems, or factual narratives of dreams. The workshop is limited to 15 participants.

For further information about and to register for the workshop, contact professor Lee Ellen Pottie: lpottie@upei.ca.