Make your own storybook
- Saturday, June 07, 2025
- Midland Public Library
The Swan Writer-in-Residence program has been developed as an extension of the successful Swan Artist-in-Residence initiative. The City has delivered artist residencies since 2021, giving guest artists a platform while activating community spaces and inspiring residents.
During their residency, each of the writers will be required to facilitate community programs and produce a creative work inspired by their experience in Midland. The locally-inspired work will be relative to the creative’s field. It could be a song, a short story, a play, a poem or a text-based artwork.
Commissioned pieces will be combined with documentation of workshops and conversations with the writers before being published.
Community members are welcome to drop in and see what artists are working on during one of six open studio sessions throughout each two-month residency.
Bec Bowman is a local creative who loves words. She uses them extensively as the host of ArtBeat on RTRFM and the podcast HerStory. She is a writer of poetry and short stories which explore art, love and place from which she compiles artbooks and zines. Bec is a skilled facilitator and loves working with people to reach their goals.
Bianca Breen is an emerging children’s and YA writer. She works at The Literature Centre in Fremantle and is passionate about community, founding YA for WA in 2021 and previously held the position of Communications Director of #LoveOzYA.
Her short works have been published by Night Parrot Press, Fremantle Press, and more. In 2021 she was the winner of the ASA Award Mentorship and has won several residencies with KSP Writers’ Centre and Vancouver Arts Centre in Albany. Bianca is an experienced moderator and has spoken at Perth Writers Festival, Ubud Readers and Writers Festival, the National Young Writers Festival, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Writing) from La Trobe University.
Lisa Collyer is a Western Australian resident living on the unceded lands of the Whadjuk People of the Nyoongar Nation. Working as a sole trader as a writer and English tutor Lisa writes poems like the jagged edge of a can opened-up, with a lens on women’s bodies.
Her debut poetry collection, ‘How to Order Eggs Sunny Side Up’ was recently published with Gazebo Books and was short-listed (as a preliminary manuscript) for The Dorothy Hewett Award. She has been published in; Westerly Magazine, Australian Poetry Anthology, Rabbit Journal for non-fiction poetry, Cordite Poetry Review, Science Write Now and more.
She was also a micro-resident with WA Poets Inc. where she wrote poems in response to the shopping precinct and women’s experiences of them. She was an invited writer in residence at Katharine Susannah Prichard Writer’s Centre where she wrote poems for her second collection, reflecting women working in horticulture and in the primary industries.
Nina Dakin is a writer and comic artist. Nina is 22 years old and has recently graduated university majoring in animation. She is passionate about telling stories and experimentation within the genre of comics.
Her works include creating comics out of poetry, dreams and collaborative comics created from improvisational games. Her comic work, "Fantastic Cadavar" was shortlisted in 2022 for a Comic Art Award of Australia, "As You Drive" was awarded a Bronze Comic Art Award of Australia in 2021 and her webcomic, Bird Girl was shortlisted in 2021. Her stories and illustrations have been published in Myth 5, 6 and 7, the West Coast Comic Anthology, and Flight Magazine.
She was the former President of the Curtin Illustration Club in 2022 and tables at community events such as Xerox Days and the Perth Comic Arts Festival. Her comic work has been exhibited in the Cockburn Showoff, Fremantle’s 25 Under 25, City of Swan’s Hypervision, Perth Comic Arts Festival and Xerox Days.
Lakshmi Kanchi, pen name SoulReserve, is a Western Australian poet of Indian descent. She is a dedicated Writing WA and WA Poets Inc. Board and Committee Member and Volunteer. Her poetry explores love and its tumultuousness, fantasy and zest in nature, and allegories that provoke thought and evoke tender feelings. Her writing anatomises the complex linkages between history, language, culture, perception, and nature./p>
Lakshmi's debut poetry collection, "Lakesong," was recently published by Centre for Stories (Northbridge) in collaboration with Red River Press (New Delhi). She won the 2021 Pocketry Prize and 2023 Ros Spencer Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for SCWC Wollongong’s Poetry Prizes two years in a row. Her poems were “Highly Commended” in both, Poetry d’Amour Contest and Ros Spencer Poetry Prize—announced at the 2022 Perth Poetry Festival. Lakshmi's poetry has been featured in various literary publications including but not limited to—"Social Alternatives”, "Portside Review", "Burrow Journal", "The Saltbush Review", "Blue Bottle Journal", "Seagift Journal", "Recoil 12", "Poetry d’Amour", "Letters To Our Home", "Brushstrokes II" and "Creatrix."
She was the inaugural Poet-in-Residence at The Wetlands Centre Cockburn (2022-23) and it is from here that she is constantly working towards her mission—of making poetry accessible to everyone in the wider community.