Our group is made up of experienced published writers, passionate creative writers and complete beginners, poets, song writers, historians, biographers, fictioners, factioners and fablers.

We meet once a month to encourage and coerce each other into writing better, bigger and bolder. We edit, re-edit, write and re-write, read published writers and discuss their style and success, and set a task to be completed by the following month;  this is not always attempted by all members, but has resulted in some startling publications.

Southern Scribes began in 1998 when the foundation members decided to assemble stories about interesting people who had lived, or were still living, in our district. The project took two years of interviewing and hard work, culminating in a 400-page book which was self-published. The book, 'And The Dingoes Howled', has been a tremendous success and was reprinted in 2000 as we realised how important it was to record those stories that were in danger of being lost.

In 2003 we entered a competition with an anthology of poetry and photography showcasing the spectacular Fitzgerald River Biosphere, which is part of our lives. We won our section of the competition and were then encouraged to publish a book using some of the material. ‘Land Song’ was published in 2004.   One of our members made a bright suggestion that ‘Land Song’ be the first of a trilogy.  ‘Sea Sirens’ was published in 2006 and also earned a national literary award from the Fellowship of Australian Writers, Victoria in 2007. In 2009 the trilogy was completed with 'Skylarks'.  

Our book, 'Wildflower Country', which is about the world-renowned wildflowers of our area was launched in conjunction with the opening of the 25th Ravensthorpe Wildflower Show 2007. It features excellent photographs of our local flowers and trees, with poems and prose to match.

Here is another poem from 'Wildflower Country', written by our most succinct poet, Gai Downes:

                pointy as a pin
               soft as a cushion








        (This flower is called a
           Pincushion Hakea)

Check out our Products page for more information about our books.
CONTACT US:  chenda@westnet.com.au