I was born, Ann Hutcheson, in Winton, Central Queensland. When I was about five, my family moved from Winton to Brisbane. I left Brisbane in my mid-twenties and have not lived in Queensland since.

I trained as a teacher at Kelvin Grove Teachers’ College in Brisbane. Later I completed my Arts Degree at University of New England, obtained a Graduate Diploma in Cross Cultural Studies from what is now Edith Cowan University WA, and wrote my Masters of Education at University of Queensland. As a teacher my interests were in Aboriginal, and bi-lingual education.

In 1987 I co-founded Blast magazine, a magazine of literary and social comment based in Canberra. I co-edited Blast for twenty issues, until 1993. I’ve also edited two books of poetry by Canberra poets: Looking Out Looking In ( 1994) and Looking Still (1998). My literary criticism has been published in several outlets including The Age Monthly Review.

For a decade (1986 – 1996) I was a theatre critic and theatre column writer for The Canberra Times. I regularly contributed theatre reviews and articles to several Australian arts magazines. At present I’m spending more time on my creative writing, but I continue to write on a freelance basis, mainly for the National Library of Australia News.

The Verandah – a place of imagining

Dostoevsky says that the best education for a writer is a single glowing memory of childhood.

My memory is of a house, the home of my early childhood, the ‘old Queenslander’ featured on the home page of this website.

This house is ever-present in my waking and in my dreams. Sometimes it almost flounders in a churning ocean; at other times it is anchored in an arid landscape, surviving, single, resolute.

The interiors of the house are dark and cool. Even now I squint my eyes as I see myself move out of blazing sun into its verandah-ed shade.

There are places in the house I know are there, but where I’ve never been.
My website in an exploration of those places.

Ann Nugent
email anugent@annsverandah.com