Member Profile

Beverley George joined Eastwood/Hills FAW in 1995 and has served as both secretary and president. She became a Writing Fellow of the FAW in 1997. She is also President of the Australian Haiku Society [http://www.haikuoz.org/] and a member of the British Haiku Society, the Haiku Society of America, the World Haiku Club, the Poets Union (NSW), the Poetry Australia Foundation, the Tanka Society of America, Headland Writers, The Sydney Children's Writers & Illustrators Network at The Hughenden, and of the Society of Women Writers (NSW).

She has worked as a technical writer for CSIRO. Her short stories have been published commercially in The Australian Weekend Magazine, Woman’s Day, New Idea and many anthologies.

Beverley has won more than thirty first prizes for her writing including First Prizes in the  WB Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand for both 2004 and 2005; The Vera Newsom Poetry Prize 2005 and the  Society of Women Writers Competition 2006. Her poetry published has been published in Island, Poetrix, Vintage, Famous Reporter, and the Eastwood/Hills FAW, Central Coast Poets Society’s and the Societies of Women Writers’ anthologies. In 2007 she was an invited reader at Poetry at the Pub (Newscastle ) and for Dangerously Poetic Press (Byron Bay).

Her book Sneeze Power, a story for eight year olds was published by Blake Education in March 2006. She has had poetry for children published in The School Magazine (NSW)

She is particularly interested in Japanese genres and her  haiku and tanka have been published in UK, Japan, US, NZ, Russia, Croatia, Canada, France as well as in Australia. International First Prizes for Haiku and Tanka comprise: The Third Ashiya International Festa [Japan] 2004,  the British Haiku Society JW Hackett Award 2004;  The World Haiku Club Fourth New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day Double Kukai 2003/2004; TheWorld Haiku Club R H Blyth Award for Haibun 2004;The Tanka Society of America’s Annual International  Contest 2006 and the English section of the Chajin [Paris] International Haiku Competition 2007.

Reviews of her tanka collection empty garden are available on http://www.eucalypt.info/ and of her haiku collection, Spinifex, on http://www.pardalote.com.au/

In April 2007 she was invited to present a paper, Haiku in Australia, at the 3^rd Pacific Rim International Haiku Conference in Matsuyama, Japan.

Beverley is committed to helping other writers and in 2006-2007 gave 20 workshops and wrote 5 blurbs, 4 forewords and 5 reviews of other poets’ work.

She produced and edited the Society of Women Writers (NSW) Inc newsletter for two years 2004-2006.

From 2001-2006 Beverley produced and edited Yellow Moon a print poetry magazine, which enjoyed an international reputation and built bridges in understanding between western poets and a number of Japanese poetic genres. In this endeavour she was greatly assisted by members of Eastwood/Hills FAW, many of whom subscribed and participated. Several members served as regular judges for mainstream poetry segments of the magazine. These people included Denise Aldridge who judged and wrote guidelines for many genres including sonnets, Chaucerian, odes, elegies, Carolyn Alfonzetti who judged humorous verse, Dr Anne Howard who judged idyll,  and Carmel Summers who judged cinquain.

Of the 21 people who regularly or occasionally judged for Yellow Moon (two of whom were overseas poets) eight were Eastwood/Hills Members: Denise Aldridge, Carolyn Alfonzetti, Brian Beesley, Pat Fern, Beverley George, Dr Anne Howard, Mary Locke, Carmel Summers. Other Eastwood Hills members helped in other ways and an eight issue magazine for young children Young Yellow Moon was supported by Eastwood Hills FAW (under the presidency of Connie Vallis), Adeline Burton, Carmel Summers, Mary Milton, Marnie Holmes, Margaret Young and Connie Vallis.

In December 2006 Beverley founded Eucalypt [ http://www.eucalypt.info/  ] Australia’s first literary journal dedicated to the tanka genre. To date several Eastwood/Hills members have been published in it, standing up to rigorous international competition to gain a place. Others support it with a subscription. Eastwood/Hills member, Julie Thorndyke, whose own work is gaining international recognition, was the assisting editor for Eucalypt issue 2.

Publications:

• Sneeze Power Blake Education 2006 [a book for children]
• empty garden [tanka] Yellow Moon, 2006
• Spinifex [haiku] Pardalote Press, 2006

For more information about the tanka journal Eucalypt please visit http://www.eucalypt.info/

Jacqueline Winn