Annamaria Weldon is a former journalist and has been writing since 1978.
Biography
Annamaria's work has been broadcast on ABC RN (Poetica and Short Stories) and in 2008, her poetry collection The Roof Milkers was published by Sunline Press.
Her work-in-progress on her landscape journal has expanded to include wetland photographs; an outcome of her residency which has also led to promotion of her nature writing across the community. During 2009-2010 she held 20 writing workshops in Perth, Fremantle, Mandurah and Denmark, based on her Adaptation experiences and Yalgorup stories, and sponsored by writingWA, City of Mandurah, Country Arts Network W.A., Community First International, Poets Union and Denmark Arts. 14 of Weldon’s Yalgorup journal poems and essays have already been published, appearing in the national anthology ‘Science Made Marvellous’ (Poets Union), Landscapes (ECU International Centre for Landscape and Language), Westerly (UWA forthcoming 2010), The Red Room Company, Indigo and dotdotdash. Her thrombolite photographs have been exhibited at UWA’s Science Library (‘Evolution in Action – Charles Darwin and Western Australia’s bio-diversity hotspot’ 2009), published in Artsource, Science Matters, Terrain.org, Landscapes and selected for the forthcoming ‘Wetlands – the Vital Link’ (Museums Australia). Weldon has given 15 public readings and presentations on her wetlands writing, participating as guest speaker in the nature symposia Hydrobotanica (2009, Createc/ECU) and Rhythm of the Wild (2010 Alexander Library, with Nicholas Rothwell and Gina Mercer) and the launch of Stretch Festival 2010 where her Lake Clifton poetry was set to music and dance.
In 2010 Annamaria won The Tom Collins Poetry Prize for her poem, ‘The memory of earth’, written after her visit to the site of the Pinjarra Massacre at Murray river in Western Australia. In February 2011 it was announced that Annamaria had won the inaugural Nature Conservancy Australia Nature Writing Prize for her essay entitled ‘Threshold Country’.
Research project
Sharing the Edge
Sharing the Edge was conceived as a suite of poems and landscape memoirs to be written by poet Annamaria Weldon working collaboratively with naturalist Laurie Smith, who was writing complementary essays and notes from a solely science-based point of view. Informed and inspired by the ecology of Lake Clifton, the thrombolites and whatever else Shares the Edge with them, and explored through a scientific and experiential ‘lens’, their work was intended for publication and/or public recitals enhanced by image and sound, with community interaction at presentations and workshops, or as a public story-board or website.
In July 2010, on completion of the project’s research and development phase, Weldon and Smith decided to pursue independent creative outcomes.
Collaborators
Period of Research
2009 - 2010
Publications & Media
- Weldon, A (2010) 'The memory of earth', unpublished
- Koval, Ramona (Interviewer), February 2011, 'Nature Writing Prize winner, Annamaria Weldon – interview', The Book Show, ABC National, Australia
- Weldon, A (2011) 'Threshold Country', Indigo Journal, Perth, Western Australia
University information
CRICOS Code: 00126G
